Film Review

5.1       Review and critique at least one short film production

Title: The Birch

Directors: Anthony Melton & Ben Franklin

Country: United Kingdom

Year: 2016

Link: https://youtu.be/SxQj0DumF8Y

This short film, is about a bullied schoolboy who takes drastic measures against his tormentor, summoning an ancient being in the woods using a spellbound book passed through the generations of his family. The message is to not bully, as you never know the result this may have, and what consequences there shall be for your actions, the result in this film being gravely negative for the bully, Shaun. The general themes throughout this short films are horror, drama and thriller, presented by use of sound and cinematography to create suspense. Sound does this by the protagonist not using any dialogue, as the only dialogue is from the bully and Kris’ Grandma. His grandmas speech is one long sonic bridge, that narrates over the whole film until the birch is introduced. At first we, as an audience just assume that she is the narrator who’s sole purpose is to inform us of the Birch, but we later learn that she is his grandma, who has the family secret. Also after the bully has been killed by the birch there is no more dialogue, and the sound is faded out, to almost white noise, to make the audience focus on the remains of Shaun’s body and to focus on just what the birch is capable of, whilst creating an eerie effect. There is a great contrast between plenty of close ups and long shots. All of which build the story up with suspense.

There is a clear editing style between Kris running away from the bully Shaun and Kris entering the woods, it cuts to extreme close ups of Shauns bloody remains, perhaps to foreshadow the outcome of Kris being there. I believe that this had been thought about in great detail by the editor,and so creates a lasting effect on the reader. It also shows Kris interacting with his grandmother, when she hands him the spell book, as this is truly important to drive the narrative forward. It’s spends extra time on this to further represent the importance of this moment. The editor then proceeds to use the speech of the grandma as the background narration voice for when the events in he woods occur, and the Birch is finally introduced to us through it’s horrifying act.

In the short film the setting flicks between the street, to the bedroom of his grandmother and then to the woods, where Kris summons the birch. This is purposely used, in order to speed up the narrative of the film, and to create anxiety and tension within the audience.

I would say that this film was aimed at teenagers, due to the theme of bullying happening to a Kris’ character, I believe this because this could be a relatable theme for many viewers. The costume used for the birch was extremely alarming for the low budget of the film and was seemingly of equal quality as an actual costume used in a full feature length film, and so it worked very dramatically in creating fear within its spectator. I would 100% recommend this film despite its somewhat unsettling theme, because it interestingly uses sound and editing to draw in the viewers attention.