Written by: Ryan Dailey
Static is proof positive that one does not need star-power, huge budget and fancy effects to provide an engaging narrative and a quality piece of cinema. Under the Macabre Productions umbrella, Static, directed by Anna Hammill and stars Shirley Jordan, Mary Beth Eversole and Megan Farley and beautifully addresses mental health issues, such as postpartum depression.
Static follows a young mother as she struggles with her own self loathing and the stress of raising and losing a newborn after her partner left. She is not only haunted by a vision of a man haunting the nursery, but his gravelly, taunting voice over the baby monitor.
It is rare that any medium, film especially, tackles mental health in such a realistic way without resorting to over the top tropes and stereotypes. Much like Macabre Productions other works Darby After Dark, Quarantine and Reap, the viewer can tell that these works were produced by competent parties with not only a great love of filmmaking and the genre of horror and suspense, but people that support women in film as well as never speaking down to the viewer. Static is well worth a viewing and it will stick with you long after the credits scroll.
Quarantine is another great offering from Anna Hammill and Macabre Productions. Starring Jess Adams as Addison and Dalton Polivka as boyfriend Nick, the film starts in the middle of a long standing quarantine. Addison, like so many of us during the real life pandemic, is suffering from cabin fever and uses her social media platform to not only communicate to the outside world, but also as a live streamed video diary of the global debacle going on outside of her window. Unlike some films set during a Covid-19 type of situation, Quarantine leaves it in the backdrop, merely a catalyst for the events that happen to Addison and not the sole purpose of the film. This allows the viewer to focus on relating to Addison as she engages in many activities that we all did during lockdown. Aside from going stir crazy from being stuck in the apartment for hundreds of days, Addison is also dealing with the loss of Nick. Addison decides to summon her deceased loved one with a homemade Ouija Board and learns to be careful what you wish for.
Next, Reap is a micro short starring Katrina Sherwood and is a simple tale of a woman coming home and cleaning herself up after a murder. It is under three minutes long and is the best type of horror. The viewer sees only the aftermath, with only subtle clues that allude to the actual murder. “Was she defending herself?” “Did she murder him for wronging her?”
The viewer is left to fill in the blanks, a rare commodity since mainstream Hollywood is condescending to the audience and believes us all to be idiots. Macabre Productions does it again by giving the horror nation something that film should always do, which is make the audience think, imagine, feel and react.
Darby After Dark is the final short up for review and, as of this writing, is not posted to YouTube. Megan Farley plays Darby, a late night radio DJ, holding a contest for concert tickets. The caller with the scariest story wins. Darby is thrown off her guard when a caller proposes the young radio personality play a supernatural game to discover answers to three of her burning questions.Darby After Dark is a claustrophobic tale of horror with an underlying message of sometimes ignorance is bliss and not to toy with forces one does not understand.
Macabre Productions and all of those involved in their projects are a glimmer of hope in the bleak abyss of modern day filmmaking. Originality and talent are the order of the day in each and every one of the short films mentioned here. Macabre Production films invoke the new and exciting feeling that audiences experienced during the independent film renaissance of the early 1990’s, when Reservoir Dogs was released and David Lynch had a television show on a major network. This group makes the audience not only excited about films again, but the comradery that comes along with banding together and putting your blood,sweat and tears up on the screen.