Hellmouth
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Gus Reed
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A couple descends an absurdly steep LA staircase playing an intimate question game that drifts, step by step, toward death and regret.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A whole short staged as a question game on a staircase — that's a directorial constraint with conviction. I'm a sucker for films that pick one location and stake their entire mood on it.
A real LA staircase as vertical confessional, geography doing the dramatic structuring — Linklater walk-and-talk filtered through hypnagogic dream where the sidewalk keeps tilting downward. Lovely idea.
Treats a real LA landmark staircase as a vertical confessional with geography doing the dramatic structuring — the question-game drifting toward death and regret as the staircase descends is exactly the kind of formal-physical alignment I love.
Reviews
A dramatic vignette that's vaguely unsettling, almost dream-like in tone.