I occasionally get requests to review short films, which I find a bit of a challenge because – at the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious – they are short. I typically aim for five hundred words per review, but it’s hard to generate that off a film which can last ten minutes or less. I certainly enjoy short films: our events like FearCon screen a lot of them. However, I usually don’t find I have enough of an opinion to form a full review. So, here we are instead, combining smaller pieces about several shorts – all of which I think are well worth your time – into a single feature. This will be intermittent, as and when I get enough shorts stockpiled to make for an adequate article. It’ll also push me, hopefully, to be informative and amusing at shorter length!
Liquor Bank (2025)
Dir: Marcellus Cox
Star: Antwone Barnes, Sean Alexander James
Cox is known around these parts for Mickey Hardaway, and has followed up with this short, about ex-Marine Eddie (Barnes). He is struggling with alcoholism and has just fallen off the wagon after a year of sobriety (top). His Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, Baker (James), pays him a visit. But does Eddie want to change? It’s a simple premise, executed equally simply: two people, talking in an apartment. Not much in the way of a soundtrack either. It’s perhaps this sparseness which contributes to the film’s power: there’s nothing to distract you from the personal issue at the film’s core. It’s something which resonates with me personally, but should also work for anyone, because of the humanity at its core.
It’s the kind of drama which plays out a million times every day, around the world, as people reach their tipping points in various ways. Some step back from the edge; others plunge over it. Here, the outcome is uncertain until the final shot. Though it’s a battle any recovering alcoholic has to fight continuously. “One day at a time” is a mantra for good reason. Having the support of good people like Baker is key to winning that daily struggle, because it’s a hundred times more difficult by yourself. This does briefly tilt over into confrontation of a more than verbal kind, and it is a bit unconvincing there. Yet that may be the point. With everything else here so strong, I’m inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Milk, Rice, and the Blood (2024)
Dir: Doke Saurabh
Star: Swapnil Badnale, Ashish Bisht, Ashwanikumar Jadhav, Aditya
Pradip (Badnale) moves to the city and starts sharing an apartment with Ashish (Bisht). Initially, the pair get along well, but Pradip has a tendency to get on the wrong side of everyone. For example, he annoys the local milk delivery cartel – a lucrative business – run by Vikram Gavli (Aditya), by pointing out their poor quality product and replacing it with milk from his uncle’s farm. An unfortunate incident turns their landlord against him too. Then, Pradip meets a tragic fate, and his cousin Siddharth (played by director Saurabh), comes to the city. He is intent on finding the truth behind what happened, and making sure those responsible don’t escape justice. However, it’s all thoroughly murky.
As shorts go, this is actually pretty long: though at 45 minutes, it’s still well short of feature length. it feel like Saurabh crams a lot in, not least because the timeline is fractured. This forces the viewer to pay close attention, in order to assemble the pieces in the right order. The directors says it “unfolds like a stream of thoughts—disjointed and without a clear timeline.” and he’s not wrong. It’s an approach of which I’m normally skeptical, and I’m not certain it adds a great deal to proceedings here, except for delaying the true cause of Pradip’s downfall until almost the end. However, it still feels structured, and that’s an improvement over some uses of the technique, which collapse into an incomprehensible mess.
The title is both literal – all three components play a significant role in proceedings, such as was discussed above for milk – and metaphorical. Doke says, “Just as milk is becoming increasingly impure over time, so are our thoughts – tainted by what we consume, both physically and mentally.” But this works more than adequately without any spiritual awareness, offering an intriguing glimpse into life in a foreign culture. There’s also a stabbing which is genuinely among the more disturbing pieces of violence I’ve seen this year: it’s not graphic, yet packs an unexpected emotional wallop due to the circumstances. If your experience of Indian films is three hours long, with musical numbers, this will set you straight.
The film is currently available to stream on Amazon.
Black Fog
Dir: Jud Willmont, Nicholas Z. Scott
Star: Crystal Rao, Lipei Gao
One of the challenges of short film is narrative. You only have a few minutes to start, develop and finish your story: quite often, we find shorts largely abandon this, opting instead for pure atmosphere. It makes us respect, all the more, the entries which put in the effort. This lasts less than seven minutes, excluding the end credits, yet manages to do both: tell a story, and generate impressive tension around it. A mother (Gao) and her daughter (Rao) are stuck in their vehicle, in the middle of nowhere, during a storm. Why? It doesn’t matter: fill in the blanks there yourself. What does matter: the thing lurking outside.
Directors Willmont and Scott (Westerners, who have been working in China for quite some time) do an excellent job of hitting the ground running, and there’s barely a wasted shot or moment in the film. You’re pulled forward throughout, by the film posing of questions, such as why is the mother locking her daughter outside? It’s also a very simple premise, tapping into a primeval fear: there’s something in the woods, and it wants to kill us. It’s never seen at all until the final seconds: this is a technique frequently used to save money, but here it doesn’t feel like that at all. Excellent sound design, combining sounds both natural and very unnatural, ramps things up further. Clammy palms and holding your breath are the most likely outcomes of watching this.
The film was a selection at the Albuquerque Film Festival, presented by Phoenix FearCon
