As I was looking for short films to write about for the blog (as is our weekly assigned activity for e-double-s), I happened upon a website called ‘shortoftheweek.com’. I had never heard of this site before, and was interested as to what it had to offer.
Short of the Week premieres the best, most ground-breaking short films from emerging filmmakers. We premiere new short films every week that push boundaries, experiment with new techniques, touch on cultural issues, and represent new diverse voices.
They definitely had a lot of films touching on cultural issues, and these did interest me (and I did enjoy watching ‘Bodega’), I thought that looking into horror shorts would be the best use of time, given that we are now producing a horror film. Searching ‘horror’ into the top bar brought up a short directed by Karen Gillan (which I had seen in the past) but one grabbed me – also British in origin and directed by Rob Savage, I thought that ‘Salt’ – given it had a run time of only two minutes – looked absolutely fascinating.
And sure enough, I was blown away by how quickly the film managed to set up character and plot.
It is based around a mother and daughter – it is unclear where Dad is – who live alone in a house (ISOLATION), and the daughter is sick with something. The daughter falls into a coughing fit, and the mother must go downstairs to retrieve her medication.
But, the mum’s journey is complicated by the demon that habits the house. As the camera pulls out, it reveals that her daughter’s bed is circled with salt and the daughter looks unreasonably concerned that the mum has to leave. As the mother starts running down the stairs, the demons starts to chase her – and the only way she can ward it off is to surround herself/it with a salt circle. She eventually does catch it – then watches in wonder as it uses a disconnected fan to blow away the salt and escape – which gives the impression it is the first time she’s ever trapped it.
Once the demon has gone, she races back upstairs to see her daughter not breathing, then carries her down and gets in the (also salt-circled) car. The car doesn’t work, and then the demon comes.
There is a lot of question that the film leaves and doesn’t answer – and some of these are probably intentional. For example, why is there all the notes on the walls, why is downstairs so messy – if she has trapped the demon before, and it got out, wouldn’t she realise that it can use a fan to escape? Is the rest of the world like this? If the circle is around the daughter’s bed – how did the demon get to her? Is the demon learning?
Some of those questions being unanswered only builds tension.
The idea behind Salt – according to Rob Savage was …
We wanted Salt to be a single set piece that was so packed with ideas and scares that the audience forgets to hold their breath.
We both love siege movies and were trying to think of the most intense, contained siege movie we could make
-Rob Savage
Saage certainly succeeded in doing this, as he managed to tell the (open-ended) story within that time. The set up – shots of all the salt containers – is incredible, and quickly conveys what is happening. The film is then fast-paced, and does not lag – which is essential given it’s genre. The mother already knows about the demon, but it’s still effective – this is encouraging as it is an issue that we are currently facing in One Closed Door.
Finally, I realize that one of the reasons that we straight away barrack for the mother is because she is relateable – regardless of whether you’re an adult of a child, male or female, the love of a mother is something everyone can relate too. So with minimal effort – yet what is perhaps the most natural – the filmmaker is able to build a relationship with the audience.
