FILM GUTTER REVIEWS: MAIL ORDER (2011)

MAIL ORDER (2011)
Dir. Eric Shapiro, 16 mins

Two things to say before I start – I've always liked horror short films, and have tried throughout the five or so years of Film Gutter to bring the focus to them where I can. It's not always easy to find that many that are particular extreme, but I've always enjoyed watching them where they fit the bill. Ultimately it's never been a hardship for me to review something in the milieu.

Secondly, if I'm trawling my way through Amazon Prime and I see the name JACK KETCHUM on the front page of the movie, it's dollars to doughnuts that I'm going to click it. This short film is based on an equally short story by one of the most acclaimed horror writers of his generation, so had to be worth at least a look – especially bearing in mind this is the mind that brought us movies like The Woman and The Girl Next Door. So let's dive in, shall we?

Mail Order tells the story of Howard, who is quickly established as a sort of douchebag, one of those stock market wheeler-dealery types with more money than morality. Hats off for getting that across so quickly. Unfortunately he's even slimier than that, as with his work done he proceeds to open a package and play a snuff film he's ordered. But something there gives him pause – although honestly he probably should have paused long before the act of hitting play. Anyway, he recognises the women on the tape as ex-girlfriend Greta, with whom he had a pretty brief dalliance that ended when he tried to get a bit too aggressive in the bedroom. We see all this in flashback, and it's decently enough done structure-wise. But there's a final surprise to come, and Howard bumps into Greta in an alleyway – which he seems weirdly blasé about – but she's certainly not forgotten what he did to her...

Honestly I felt like I preferred the opening section of this film to the closing, which was a bit hard to fully grasp at the time, although I think you can make sense of given some time and thought about it. Still, the central premise is a decent one, and that's a word I'd use for about everything here – decent. There's a small cast and crew involved, and clearly things have been done on a budget – very common in this section of the industry. The acting performances are perfectly fine, and everything looks OK without really excelling in the camerawork or visual elements. You can tell it's a Ketchum from its overall bleak tone and some of its content, so if you like the author's work you might get that bit more out of it again. But ultimately this was a movie that did a solid enough job of everything, and was worth the quarter of an hour or so that I invested in it.

RATING: 6/10. Funnily enough IMDB seems to have landed on 6.2/10 (at the time of writing) and that feels pretty fair. Mail Order is not likely to rock your world, but it's perfectly watchable and entertaining for what it is out to achieve. It probably won't be your go to Ketchum adaptation – although it has some extremely stiff competition in that regard – but for afficionados it should be a good watch, and indeed it's worth checking out even if that's not the case. You can go and find it on Amazon Prime if you'd like to take a look for yourself – no need to mail off for it or anything...

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