Hellspawn
2023 · 15m · UK
Directed by Michael Demetriou
Genres: dark comedy, drama, satire
Tones: dark, darkly comic, provocative
Young creatives including Hannah, newly interviewing at a hip UK commercial production company, navigate the slow death of artistic aspiration against the grinding reality of the advertising industry. A sharply observed satire on the compromises of a creative life, delivered through interconnected vignettes.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
The production company is called Hellspawn and everyone acts like it's a normal place to work. The film earns its name without a single wink.
Demetriou names the production company in his ad-industry satire 'Hellspawn' — the joke is that the company is the monster. Interconnected-vignette structure works; the cynicism is earned.
Naming the predatory production company Hellspawn and then letting interconnected vignettes do the slow-death-of-creative-aspiration work is a confident satirical structure, but the genre is crowded and 15 minutes of industry self-loathing needs sharper teeth than the premise alone provides. Curious how observed it really is.