Nancy Guerriero, A.K. Murtadha, Travis McElroy, Kristen Lorenz
The backstory to this teeny little film - three minutes long - is kinda interesting. Director Zymet made it to the final 200 of On the Lot, the TV reality show in which film-makers compete for a million-dollar development deal. At that stage, they were given a week to make a film based on one of three concepts: Zymet chose "Blinded by Beauty". One week, three cinematographers, two sound designers, and what sounds like very little sleep later, Wormhole Chasers was finished. Zymet didn't get on to the next stage - he couldn't bring himself to sign the contracts as presented - but as the series has proven to be one of the biggest ratings disasters of the year, that's perhaps no bad thing.
In three minutes, there's not much you can do, except set up an interesting premise: a woman answers the door to discover several people are there, because a wormhole is about to open in the corner of her apartment. Where do they come from? What's on the other side of the wrinkle in space? These are questions the film, wisely, has absolutely no interest in answering: it really can't. What it does do, however, is set the scene nicely, introducing us to intriguing characters, and drawing with quick, broad strokes, a Gilliam-esque universe that's slightly to one side of our own. It's too slight to say much more about - otherwise, it'd take longer to read the review than to watch! - but the fundamentals are sound. We'll see where Zymet goes from here.
B-
[July 2007]
