Film Review: Next Time You’ll Know Me (short film) (2013)

SYNOPSIS:

This moody, urban story centers on the relationship between the Price brothers who owned a restaurant that hit bad fortunes. LaFayette, the older of the two, discovers that his brother Harris went on the street for money to finance their failing venture, only to end up owing an amount he could never repay. Knowing that his life is in danger he goes to desperate measures — including conjuring something inhuman that mankind faced and fought down thousands of years past.

REVIEW:

This 16 minute film had an interesting concept which could have been executed slightly better – or perhaps it is simply the short running time which hinders the piece, as more explanation would have been very helpful. There was a bit of narration at the very start that goes on about memory and dreams, which I thought was a neat little introduction into the film. But then the film turns out to not be about memory at all, but rather, alien doubles. It actually put me in mind of the old classic, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, so if you liked this short film I’d strongly recommend giving this one a go.

The story follows two brothers who are at quite different stages in their life – LaFayette is content with his girlfriend (who literally never wore any clothes, I might add) and Harris, whose is in serious debt due to a failed restaurant business. Harris goes to LaFayette to borrow money and then reveals to him that he has an alien ‘double’. Confused by this news, LaFayette doesn’t quite believe it until he actually encounters the double for himself. When he next visits his brother, Harris informs him that he has a plan – the nasty criminals who he still owes money to are planning on killing him, so all he has to do is get the double into his house and let them destroy it for him. I won’t ruin it by giving away the finale, though I thought it was pretty obvious what’s going to end up happening!

I personally found the ‘filler’ stuff annoying and pointless when watching. For example, the girlfriend really didn’t have any purpose and why exactly did she have to be naked in every scene? It wasn’t like she was even having a shower or anything, she was literally just lounging around in the nude. But naked stuff aside, her character had no point whatsoever and this is what bugged me the most. There were also rather a lot of blurry, ‘ambiance’ shots which seemed like it was supposed to give the film a sense of depth but didn’t really work as far as I’m concerned. It was a nice try though.

All in all, Next Time You’ll Know Me was a decent attempt by director Steven Payne, especially as he still seems to be a complete unknown in the horror world (I tried Googling all of his film titles and name, yet found nothing online). Despite the fact that it wasn’t shot particularly well, the storyline was a great one and the effort was definitely there. I’d definitely recommend this film to any aspiring independent film makers out there as to how to make good with what you’ve got. Nice one Steven Payne