Citrullus
2024 · 8m
Directed by Miguel Jaime
Genres: dark comedy, horror, thriller
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
On a sweltering summer day, an ordinary guy finds that a simple watermelon has become an object of dread as reality slices apart around him.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A watermelon as the fulcrum of existential dread? Jaime's got the audacity to treat produce like a portal, and the fact that it works—that the surreal premise doesn't collapse under its own absurdity—is exactly the kind of subversive swing that makes consensus-chasing programmers nervous.
The formal precision here is quietly masterful: Jaime understands the grammar of body horror and domestic uncanniness, sitting the film in conversation with everything from Cronenberg's texture-obsession to the surrealist lineage of Buñuel, all contained in eight minutes of disciplined escalation.
The key move is the sound design—the way the watermelon's presence is sonically foregrounded before the visual rupture, making the audience complicit in its dread before they even see it, which is a decision that costs nothing but observation and elevates the entire premise from gimmick to genuine unease.
Festivals
- Spooktacular Film Fest for Horror & Sci-Fi 2024, Official Selection