THRILLER SHORT FILMS - 4
Four more of the best thriller short films from around the world.
Suburbia by Antonio Orena-Barlin (2010) (Aus) (15m) *
Suburbia, written and directed by Antonio Oreña-Barlin, is a great short film from Australia, although it seems to owe a lot to a scene from the feature film Elephant by Gus Van Sant, about a mass high-school shooting. In Suburbia, also inspired by a real event, it is a normal weekday when a man and his girlfriend are visiting a florists. However, when the man thinks he hears shots being fired, he cannot help but seek to find the cause.
The Trail's End by David Rosenbaum (2014) (US) (10m)
The Trail's End is a poem written by Bonnie Parker, famous for being one half of the bank robbing duo Bonnie & Clyde. David Rosenbaum takes the Bonnie & Clyde story as inspiration for his sci-fi romance thriller. In a futuristic world, a man is living in the next door apartment to a girl to whom he never talks. When he hears her apparently being beaten-up he feels he has no choice but to intervene.
Scruples by Adrian Powers (2010) (Australia) (15m)
Written and directed by filmmaker Adrian Powers, Scruples is another testosterone heavy thriller that has much indebtedness to the early films of Quentin Tarantino. Two 'cleaners' for a criminal gang have been sent to tie up a loose end. However, one of them is an undercover cop who finds himself in a tricky spot. A slightly insincere account of how a policeman would actually have to act is forgivable and Powers has gone on to make his first feature film.
Alma by Rodrigo Blaas (2009) (US/Spain) (6m) *
An unusual animation that touches on the thriller genre written and directed by Rodrigo Blaas, a Spanish animator who has worked on brilliant Pixar features such as Wall-E and Up. Alma is an angelic little girl who is writing her name on a wall when she spies a doll in a shop window that looks exactly like her. She enters the empty shop. The doll keeps moving but Alma is determined to get her hands on it...
