Moist - ID# 508
Glenbrook North
Seven Day Challenge
Entry Description
A friend gets an invite to come over and hang, but the halting interaction takes an unexpected turn.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
Judge 1
Positives: Nice jump scare. This works really well as one of those lo-fi TikTok horror shorts. Your tracking shots are nice and it is clear you have an appreciation and knowledge of the horror genre. Your know your audience well and what they'll respond to. This feels very much like a creepypasta and has a nice viral element to it.
Improvements: I'm not getting much of a story, unfortunately. The dialogue is very expository and relies too much on filler like, "hey, what's up" "not much" "what are you doing?" When you have a horror short like this, you need to use tight dialogue and scene construction to your advantage. You could start this whole thing at the friend's house already. Adding production value as well won't take away from the effectiveness and I would have like to have seen some attention spent on audio and lighting design. That will elevate this piece from a TikTok video to an actual short film, if that's what you want.
Judge 2
Positives: I was scared to watch this based on the title! And then by the end, I was scared for an entirely different reason! 1) In the performance from the top, I can feel the awkward tension, which helps to set up the tone. 2) Major props for doing something different than I've seen in this category! I can't say this is a lock-tight plot, but there's something important about finding or exploring your voice - playing with something you haven't exactly seen before. This short was weird, tense, and ended scary. Good work!
Improvements: 1) I wanted to understand more of what was happening here! We had a long opening phone convo, and the rest of the spot happens really fast. Why was he so weird about the brownie? Why did he walk in the wrong room? Why did the guy who's house it was seem to know whatever ghoulish creature was in there? 2) On the note of characters, I wanted to feel more of what their motivations were, where the tension was, and wanted more cohesion in personality, which is a try-hard fancy way to say that I felt at one point their relationship was that of casual friends, then maybe weird study mates, then even weirder "try my brownies".
Judge 3
Positives: The unsettling tone of the story became very apparent towards the end of the story and was well executed. The pace worked very well for the piece.
Improvements: The camera shots were very simple and didn't feature much movement. Although the tone of portions of the video was intended to be dark, some of the shots were too dark.
Judge 4
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Judge 5
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