This one might display shades of Pan’s Labyrinth, the innocence of a young girl juxtaposed with some hideous horrid creature. That might be because Guillermo Del Toro was an executive producer helping Jovanka Vuckovic bring his vision to life.
I mean don’t get me wrong it is an impressive production effort, but shorts like this are always kind of frustrating. It’s frustrating because it’s just a demo, it’s not in service of a story or a theme. It shows the level of craft that the people working on this can achieve and it’s fine to demonstrate your credentials to get future work. It’s such a thing to elevate a story with cinematography choices that are trying to make certain impressions, or there’s layers of meaning behind creative choices and this one feels that it’s lacking that crucial element to element to elevate it above a dazzling picture show.
Still it can be mesmerizing when examining the scope of the effect works at play, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake, what’s practically done and what’s CGI. I think they do a good job mixing blue lights with harsh key lights to create an uneven dynamic landscape. The soundtrack is actually pretty interesting to listen to, it’s not particularly original but it does effective job.
It’s interesting that this film always seems aware of the audience is almost playing on our expectations more so than crafting a scene. Like the little girl goes to cover her eyes and you might think that might work because usually little kids have tremendous amounts of plot amour but that’s certainly subverted. Then you just see these cloud creatures floating about in a scene that’s tense for the audience wondering where their going but it really worth the lack of payoff to see this effect in broad daylight were it takes me out of the film because of how obvious of an effect it is.
It does some neat effects but if you won’t anything more than a “woah, that’s kind of cool” reaction I think you’ll be disappointed. Still a spook worth checking out, and I hope you enjoyed.
K at the Movies 
Anytime I hear that Guillermo Del Toro has had a hand in making something, I know to be cautious of the potential for grossness, which sounds worse than I meant it to be. I recently watched Pan’s Labyrinth for the first time with my partner and it was incredible. Definitely made me turn my face away at times, but still wow. I’ve discovered that as I get older, I have a deeper appreciation for the juxtaposition of innocence with grotesque realities. It’s just super fascinating to me lol and artistically can be as mind-blowing as it can be a horrid mess.
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Yeah, Del Toro intrigues me because Pan’s Labyrinth and some of his other films read like Grimm Fairytales but like the darker original tales. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, I feel you can always appreciate the craft that goes into the settings and creatures and just the overall world he creates.
I’m glad you enjoyed it I agree that there’s a lot of brutal moments that made me squirm as well.
Thanks for checking out this short write up I hope you enjoy.
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