A Helical
2020 · 29m
Directed by Marcus McMahon
Genres: animation, experimental, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
A 30-minute experimental sci-fi built from 80s and 90s-style graphics, chunky shapes and bold colors, following its protagonist through patterns and abstractions.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A Helical does the thing most shorts are too timid to attempt—it abandons narrative momentum entirely and asks you to *feel* abstraction, which means it'll repel half the room and haunt the other half for weeks. McMahon's betting everything on pattern and color psychology instead of plot, and that's exactly the kind of "wait, WHAT?" premise that separates the adventurous from the checkbox programmers.
The film's formal restraint—its commitment to geometric vocabulary and retro-digital language as a complete aesthetic argument—places it in dialogue with structural animation and computer art lineages, though the execution occasionally favors atmosphere over the rigor that would elevate it to the highest tier of experimental work.
The decision to build emotional weight through *repetition* of simple forms rather than variation saves this from mere nostalgia; there's a single compositional choice—the way negative space deepens as the shapes darken—that transforms what could've been a style exercise into something genuinely unsettling on a 6-minute budget.
Reviews
The environment McMahon builds is expertly crafted, and elicits just the right kind of reaction from niche audiences. And for the rest, even if not all of the film presents itself neatly dissectable, it is a lingering experience, inviting multiple views.