Currently we have “World War Z” and “Monsters University” newly coming to our local cinema but I haven’t watched them. Poor me. LOL. Anyway, in my spare time I often browsed for some one-shoot entertainments in the internet. I mean, yeah, short films! I always love short films because there are times when I don’t have enough time to watch full-length films, or I’m just too lazy to do it. So all I had to do is opening either Youtube or Vimeo, and searching for short films.

Actually, there are tons of short films available in the internet. But in my opinion, because short films are simple (everybody could make it if they want—you just need a camcorder or a videophone, shoot, do some editing, and upload it to internet), most of these short films which might look too experimental. In the other hand, with the shortness of duration they have, short films sometimes come up with very simple things to put in our concern.

By the way, a few days ago I felt like I wanted to watch some thrillers or mysteries but in a short form. So I browsed the internet and found 4 thriller/mystery short films which are worth watching. Perhaps you had seen some of them. Take a look.

---

The Piano Tuner

ORIGINAL TITLE L’Accordeur COUNTRY France RUNTIME 14 min

DIRECTOR Olivier Treiner MORE INFO

The French short film raises a very good introduction of a pianist. After he failed winning a sort of music prize he wanted, he quit playing piano publicly and turned to be a piano tuner. What is great about “The Piano Tuner”, besides the piano instrumental that plays along in the background, is how the director wraps an out-of-the-box character introduction in the beginning and establishes a very solid ground from which the plot expands to another bigger thriller. I was quite impressed by the characterization of the pianist, and it has interesting dialogue. A fresh story, as well.  MY RATING >  4/5

The Guilt

ORIGINAL TITLE La Culpa COUNTRY Spain RUNTIME 14 min

DIRECTOR David Victori MORE INFO

This is a short film from Spain. The basic idea of “The Guilt” is probably not new in the thriller world: revenge. A man found his wife murdered and tracked down to find the murderer and take revenge on him, but he couldn’t resist from slipping into his own guilt. “The Guilt” uses staircase as a metaphor of the guilt the man had in his mind. I think “The Guilt” can’t handle all the big plot it tries to expose (because it tries to play with a sort of switching characterization, which I think takes longer duration to accomplish), but from the least that it can chew, it delivers very well.  MY RATING >  3/5

---

Still Life

COUNTRY Canada RUNTIME 9 min DIRECTOR Jon Knautz

MORE INFO

The important message from “Still Life” is don’t drive if you’re sleepy. “Still Life” is about a man who drove his car when he’s sleepy. Suddenly, he accidentally hit someone with his car. Soon, he realized that the one he hit was a mannequin, just like everybody else in that town. “Still Life” captures nicely a unique story of a kind of otherworldly situation with a nice-but-predictable twist in the ending. It wraps the story in a clever and shocking way, and it delivers its simple story very briefly. A very interesting short film you shouldn’t miss.  MY RATING >  3.5/5

The Secret Number

COUNTRY USA RUNTIME 15 min DIRECTOR Colin Levy

MORE INFO

“The Secret Number” is another example of a short film that might bit off more than it could chew, and there’s a nuance of style-over-substance in it. A math professor is put into a psychological medication because he believed that he found an integer (called “bleem”) between the number 3 and 4 which would reveal the secret of the universe. “The Secret Number” tries to expand the mystery into a larger premise of quantum physics and so on, but I think it is not 100% successful. However, the thriller-y cinematography, including beautiful camera work, is worth watching.  MY RATING >  3/5