Film Review: Distortion (short film) (2017)

SYNOPSIS:

In a small town, seven lifelong friends hit it off with a guy who arranges for them to party at the abandoned convent where he is night watchman. When Dianne awakens from the euphoric haze of the rave, things aren’t quite right. That’s when everything spins out of control. Do you have what it takes to withstand the mind-bending horror of Dianne’s nightmare?

REVIEW:

More short films, kiddies! Today we have DISTORTION, directed by Grégory Papinutto and written by Grégory Papinutto & Anne-Laure Casanova. This film won for Best Horror Short at the Paris Independant Film Festival, and is in French with English subtitles.

A group of young adults get an “in” for a great place to party – an abandoned convent where the night watchman is more than happy to let them in for the night. And so they rave, and everything that goes with that until inevitibly, the partyers start to pair off and seek more private quarters.

Dianne (Tania Kalume) finds a nice spot for her and her boyfriend but as she waits for him, she falls asleep. She awakens to screams in the distance, and her friends no where to be found. It doesn’t take long to discover this convent isn’t exactly abandoned. Here there be monsters. And the night takes a violent, and terrifying turn.

An interesting note about the film’s director – As far as I can tell, this is his first foray into the horror genre. His credits previous to this list him as having produced corporate advertising films and a few documentaries. So for all intent and purposes, this is a freshman effort.

He did a good job of it, too. Everything about this film is good from beginning to end. The special effects by Jérôme Jardin, the industrial score by GANSÙILE, everything just worked. I particularly like that all of the monsters are practical effects not digital.

It does have that “student film” vibe, hitting all the tropes and some of the more generic aspects of horror films, but it’s still really good and totally watchable. Having put this baby to bed, as they say, and placing so well at Paris Indie Film Festival, I hope to see more horror related films from this director. He definitely has the eye for it.