BY ALEX DAVIS
South Korea, 12 mins
Short film is a popular medium in horror, arguably more so than most other genres. There's a lot you can do in the space of 10 or 20 minutes in horror when it's done well. Extreme horror is no exception – and we've looked at great entries such as the impactful Cutting Moments, the nauseating Aftermath and the bizarre short films of Shaye St John. Today's offering comes from South Korea, which is certainly a part of the world to have produced many great films before. Human Form runs at only 12 minutes but for me creates a vivid dystopian world and is very effective in its short film format. Maybe there could be more to it, but in this case I'm not persuaded that a longer examination would help this one along – the sense of feeling slightly lost in a strange future world is captured excellently here. Our lead here is In-Hyung, a South Korean schoolgirl who we see visiting a surgery clinic of some sort, where she's told she doesn't have the money to afford what she is looking for. It's only when we see the face of the person she is talking to that we realise something is pretty wrong – because the face isn't truly human, but a horribly plastic(?) facsimile of what a human face should be. Now I'm not going to lie, this movie really got to me. It's not as extreme as many others I've had the good fortune of watching over the years, but that one visual of all the mask-like faces of everyone around In-Hyung really got to me. Only on rare occasions have I ever properly shouted at my TV while watching something – sure, I screamed at Thanatomorphose to 'please just end' and Vace de Noces saw me shouting at my lead to stop eating his stored faeces out of jars. Those are pretty rare moments, but with Human Form I couldn't help but vocalise just how bloody creepy and weird that image was. I have a bad feeling this is one that's going to rather haunt my dreams in the weeks and months to come. Still, everybody around In-Hyung had the same look to them – her whole family, people on the street, her friends – and that's why she wanted the procedure so desperately. She'd love to have it done before her yearbook photo, but her family flat out refuses. On her way home one day, she sees an advert on the wall which (I think) offered an experimental form of the procedure. There's kind of a dream moment where she has the 'perfect' terrifying face which is rudely interrupted by a rapid sense of something going wrong... In a wonderful final shot, In-Hyung comes to the dinner table in a hoodie, sits herself down and her family all look intently at her. We never see just what has become of her face – whether it is newly-made, or as it was, or something else entirely – which is a great moment to close on and one that perfectly bottled the sense of displacement and unease that runs throughout. It's a gloriously simple concept that is excellently delivered, with solid performances and a great sense of visual panache. It feels a bit of a shame to me that the director hasn't yet made the transition to feature films, with only one other short to their credit. If we could have had more in this vein I'd have very happily watched it indeed. RATING: 9/10. A really powerful short, with striking visuals and a strong core theme and message all the way. It's a great glimpse into a strange future world in which looking the same as everyone else is seen as superior to looking different, which you could take as a metaphor for a number of things. Whatever you take out of it, it's very well made and certainly made an immediate impression on me – and I expect will leave something of a lasting impression to boot. A fantastic 9/10. 
POP HORROR XI:I STILL, STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID DONNA SUMMER: DISCO’S REVENGE!
|
Archives
February 2022
|
RSS Feed
|
|