Short Film Review: "Filtered" (2021)

Filtered Short Film Review

Written by Stuart D. Monroe

Released by Canux Pictures via Vimeo

Written and Directed by Vincenzo Nappi

2021, 5 minutes and 39 seconds, Not Rated

Released April 24th, 2021 at Cabane à Sang Film Festival

Starring:

Jasmine Winter as Jasmine

Marco Carreiro as Marco

Review:

When I first ran across Vincenzo Nappi, I was reminded of what I love about this job. Short films that fire on all cylinders are the cinematic equivalent of a damn good short story. I’ve published some short fiction in my brief time in the game, and I feel like I know at least a thing or two about independently contained nightmares and oddities. Those little creations are near and dear to you. They also tell the audience a great deal about where a creator is headed.

With that in mind, I really like what I’m seeing out of Vincenzo Nappi. In a clear stylistic homage to movies like Unfriended: Dark Web and Host, we get our horror on the computer screen this time around. Jasmine (Jasmine Winter; Is Your Daughter Home?) just wants to talk to her buddy Marco (Marco Carreiro; Villain Initiation) after a long day at work. She’s sitting in the dark, worn out and a tad haggard. Marco appears in a blinding corona of harsh light and big smiles. He’s trying to hide the fact that he’s taking a shit, and after a good laugh and a wipe he settles in to listen to his friend’s tale of woe. He cheers her up with some funny video filters, and soon she’s in on the act, too. How come her filter isn’t showing on her but instead behind her? “Was that an earthquake?”, she wonders. She loses connection with Marco and regains connection with something much worse when she tries to call him back.

Ah, these filters are so much fun to play around with…

Filtered does a hell of a job of using the short film format to max effect with horror that’s apropos of nothing and out of nowhere like an RKO. There’s no foreshadowing or build; the inexplicable simply starts happening and doesn’t blink when you look back at it. Vincenzo Nappi isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel in these five minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Instead, he establishes a banal, end of the day bitchfest that starts off both familiar and comforting before it goes completely off the rails .

And while we have seen the old “funny filter on a face that isn’t there” bit ad nauseum in films of the emerging “screenlife” subgenre, it’s not all old hat. The entity that Jasmine lets in bears a strong resemblance to another demon in the dark named Pazuzu, but it’s his eerily effective appearance that finishes Filtered off strong. It’s a slow-speed nightmare that ends exactly when and how it should. Also, is that dog mask filter a nod to The Shining? I’d like to think that it is.

Filtered is Vincenzo Nappi having fun playing around in a subgenre that still has a bit of novelty to it with a premise that’s nearly a prompt; you could jump off in a few different directions. It also works as a simple pocket nightmare, and there is always a place for that and a need for that in the world of horror. Like I said, it’s a cool perk of the job to watch new voices slowly be born tale by tale.

Grade:

4.0 out of 5.0 stars