Lesson 7
2020 · 6m · UK
Directed by Neil Linpow
A man downloads a self-help program narrated by an enigmatic AI called MAX. Following its instructions through Lesson 7 — 'Confronting Death' — his quiet hospital visit becomes a disturbing descent into psychological manipulation and violence.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A self-help app that grooms you into violence—it's the kind of premise that makes you laugh and recoil simultaneously, and Linpow commits to the bit with zero irony, letting Michelle Fairley's clinical monotone do the real damage. Nobody else would've turned the wellness industrial complex into a weaponized psychological thriller, which is exactly why it works.
Linpow situates this firmly in the lineage of tech-dystopia and body-horror shorts, but the formal restraint—the clinical pacing, Fairley's measured delivery counterpointing the protagonist's unraveling—grounds what could've been mere provocation into something considered and architecturally sound.
The masterstroke is trusting Fairley's voice to carry the entire psychological manipulation; that cold, maternal cadence doing the seduction work lets Linpow keep the visuals spare and the budget invisible, making the descent feel intimate rather than spectacle-dependent.
Reviews
Cold and daunting but demands the viewer's attention for a tense but tightly packed six minutes.
Neil Linpow has a great eye for genuine suspense and deserves to be on our radar.
Festivals
- Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2020
- Rhode Island International Film Festival 2021
- Infinity Film Festival 2020, Best Director; Best Sound