Cold Runner
2024 · 30m · USA
Directed by Angus McMaster
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Soldiers are dosed with a mystery psychoactive compound and run through physical and psychological tests as paranoia eats through them. The pacing refuses to let the audience feel safer than the test subjects.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A war film that won't perform war for you. Thirty minutes of induced paranoia is the kind of formal patience most American shorts cannot afford to attempt.
Military pharmacological dread paced like Reygadas — McMaster trusts ambient horror over action, thirty minutes of dosed paranoia. Beau Travail crossed with Jacob's Ladder is a fair self-assignment.
30-minute slow ambient horror of military pharmacological experimentation — patience as the dread delivery system. The runtime gives the paranoia room to actually metastasize instead of vignette-pop.
Reviews
McMaster's unhurried pacing and strong visuals work together to offer a discomforting observation on deteriorating states of mind.