Greetings, and welcome back to October Horror Fest! Today, we venture into the genre of Short Horror Films. Judging by me writing this, and this entire challenge in general, I love long horror films. However, sometimes, It’s better to get horrified in a short-format, and no film does this better than the one we review today. Without further ado, sit back, relax, turn off the lights, grab some Candy and Popcorn, and let’s review…
DON’T LOOK AWAY
DON’T LOOK AWAY is a short horror film written, edited, and directed by Christopher Cox. For this short horror review, I’ll be looking into the quality of the film more than the synopsis, and truly delivering my reasons on why short form horror can be so terrifying. The film is completely free to watch on YouTube, raking in over 38 million views.
Our film starts with Savanna, a young girl doing her makeup. Her and her brother, Jim, begin to fight, just like siblings do. They argue about who is doing whose chores, as we learn that the sibling’s father is coming home in an hour, and their mom is getting home soon as well. After the argument, Savanna looks outside, and sees a man staring at her. He doesn’t move, and just stares. He is wearing a dirty, torn up suit with a black tie, and has a bag over his head. Metal chains cover the bag, and two eye holes are in the bag. Savanna stares back, in absolute fear and shock. Her father calls, and she picks up, without moving her eyes. She begins to tell her father about the man, and he responds. He immediately begins to tell Savanna to not look away, getting more and more serious, and that he’s getting home soon. He wants her to tell Jim to lock the doors, and Savanna tells him to.
Jim immediately goes and looks at the man, and he can also see him. Savanna tells Jim to not look away, and she goes to lock every door in the house, in a “genius” move. She thinks that if he still looks, it will be fine. This is until she returns, and realizes the man is gone. Jim can still see him, however, and continues to stare. As Savanna begins to panic, we see the man appear behind her. He stands and stares, and Savanna screams. Jim keeps staring at his man, and Savanna, in fright, moves across her room as the man stares. She gets to her drawer, and takes out tape, in an attempt to blind it. She puts the tape on the man in an extremely intense close up scene. Jim then tells her that his man is still there, and Savanna looks away once more to call her father. Suddenly, the man in the room pounces on Savanna, and begins to attempt to gouge her eyes out. Jim looks away from his man, and gets Savanna’s attacker off.
The sibling’s father then rushes into the room, still unable to see the man. He takes a mirror, and can see it. He shows the man his own reflection, and it begins to spasm, and disappears in a cloud of dark dust. The dad shatters the mirror, and hugs his kids. Savanna gets her father to tell her what the man was, and he says that it started when he met their mother. The man followed them, not even leaving after the siblings were born. He tried to ignore it, but now it is going after them. Jim interrupts him, saying how his man is gone. His father panics, saying that it made another version of itself when she left to lock the doors. It gets closer when you don’t watch, and we hear a ring at the doorbell. We get shots of the house, as haunting piano music plays. We then see the man in a forest. He stares at the camera as it gets closer and closer to his face.
That brings us to the end of DON’T LOOK AWAY!. I hope you all enjoyed our shorter version of Horror Fest today, but don’t worry, as there are plenty of long form articles coming soon! This film was extremely high quality, with incredible acting and tense music and scenes. The director was able to make this incredible film with a minuscule 8 minute runtime, and that’s something truly special. I recommend it to all of you. Look it up on YouTube! That’s all for today, but before I go, just remember, don’t look away…