Short Film Showcase: Contact

2009
Dir. Jeremiah Kipp

Written and directed for the annual Sinister Six Festival in NYC, Contact stars Zoe Daelman Chlanda and Robb Leigh Davis as a young couple who, whilst experimenting with bizarre drugs, experience terrifying, mind-altering visions…

Sensual, dark, nauseating and highly unsettling, Jeremiah Kipp’s Contact may only run for 10 minutes, but the hallucinogenic impression it leaves will echo for much, much longer. Opening with a quiet scene in which a couple set their table for dinner and seem on edge as they expect their guest, the film immediately evokes the likes of Eraserhead in its representation of angst-ridden, queasy domesticity. Contact basks in an eerie glow from the outset and quickly sets the mood with an atmosphere sopped in dread. Cutting to the main thrust of the narrative and left to wonder about the couple and their anticipated guest, we join Koreen and Westy as they venture into a desolate and bleak urban waste-scape to score a hit from the speaker of the film’s only line of dialogue – the sinister Rowan (Alan Rowe Kelly). Returning to their apartment, the couple take the drugs and experience extreme hallucinations and paranoia – all nightmarishly realised by director Kipp’s wildly off-kilter imagination and stark cinematography courtesy of Dominick Sivilli.

The trippy visuals add to the bleak and nightmarish feel of the film, and seem intent on unhinging the audience as much as the increasingly paranoid characters. One truly shocking moment comes when Koreen believes she and Westy have become locked together by their own melding flesh as they kiss… The culmination of this experience results in an astoundingly graphic moment that will sear itself onto the retinas of all who catch a glimpse of it. This startling and bold excursion into the extremities of the fragile human consciousness packs a truly visceral punch - in much the same way as Cronenberg's early work does.

The Ash Tree

1975 Dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark Part of the BBC’s annual series A Ghost Story for Christmas , which ran from 1971 to 1978 and featured some of the small screen’s most chilling moments, The Ash Tree was the last of several MR James adaptations directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. Written for television by David Rudkin, It stars Edward Petherbridge in the dual role of Sir Richard, an 18th century aristocrat who inherits the vast estate of his late uncle, and of Sir Matthew, his 17th century ancestor whose role in local witch trials, and the death of Ann Mothersole (Barbara Ewing), haunts Sir Richard. With a slim running time (just over 30 minutes) The Ash Tree is one of the shortest entries in the series, but it is also one of the densest. The amount of detail and information packed in, without compromising or diluting the impact of the source material, is admirable. Clarke manages to convey events and flashbacks by utilising an interesting narrative structure and some ...

Mandrake (2022)

Mandrake tells of probation officer Cathy Madden (Deirdre Mullins), who is assigned to help with the rehabilitation of recently released ‘Bloody’ Mary Laidlaw (Derbhle Crotty), who had been incarcerated years prior for the murder of her abusive husband. Rumours have long swirled in the local area concerning Mary’s dabbling in witchcraft and involvement in cases of missing children. No sooner has she been released, than the bodies of several local children are found in the woods near her farmhouse. As Cathy and local police delve deeper, the veil between real and imagined starts to fray and Cathy is drawn into a dark world of occult ritualism and blood sacrifice. Directed by Lynne Davison and written by Matt Harvey, Mandrake is a delicious slice of witchy, Northern Irish folk horror, dripping with atmosphere and arcane lore. While Irish horror is having a moment right now, with acclaimed titles such as Aislinn Clarke’s Fréwaka and Kate Dolan’s You Are Not My Mother mining rich and cr...

Kensal Green Cemetery

During a recent visit to London, a friend and I decided to explore Kensal Green Cemetery in the west of the city. Founded as the General Cemetery of All Souls by barrister George Frederick Carden in 1833, Kensal Green was inspired by the garden-style cemetery of Pere-Lachaises in Paris. Comprised of 72 acres of beautiful grounds, it was not only the first commercial cemetery in London, but also the first of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ garden-style cemeteries established to house the dead of an ever-increasing population. Campaigners for burial reform were in favour of “detached cemeteries for the metropolis” and in 1832 Parliament passed a bill that led to the formation of the General Cemetery Company to oversee appropriate measures and procedures concerning “the interment of the dead.” The company purchased land for the establishment of Kensal Green in 1831 and held a competition in order to select an appropriate designer. Among the prerequisites in the brief provided to entrants, we...

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