Crimson Mirror
2022 · 6m
Directed by Ella May Sahlman, Kyle Kallman
Genres: experimental, horror
Tones: dark, surreal, theatrical
A woman mid-breakdown in her bathroom is joined by her past and future selves emerging from the mirror — all of them searching for the same missing answer. A gothic experimental horror short built on unrestrained performance and visceral imagery.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Three versions of herself in the mirror and none of them have answers — the horror is that the past and future are just as lost as the present.
Sahlman and Kallman's gothic-bathroom-breakdown with past-and-future selves is a Persona-by-way-of-Saulnier conceit; the mirror device requires real craft to escape sketch territory.
Three temporal versions of the same woman appearing simultaneously in a bathroom mirror to collectively spiral — Cosmatos color-and-dread miniaturized to a bathroom breakdown with unrestrained performance is a tight gothic horror container.