Mouse-X
2014 · 12m · Reino Unido
Directed by Justin Tagg
Genres: mystery, sci-fi, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
Anderson wakes up in a building with no idea how or why he got there. Little by little he discovers that in each of the rooms around him there are thousands of clones of himself, waking up in the same mysterious scenario.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Mouse-X does what most sci-fi shorts are too timid to attempt—it treats the premise as genuinely unsettling rather than a puzzle to solve, letting the repetition and claustrophobia compound without offering easy catharsis. This is exactly the kind of film that makes programmers nervous because it refuses to comfort you.
Tagg's escalating structure recalls the methodical unease of Roeg and early Polanski, with careful framing choices that transform each identical room into a variation on a theme; the film understands how to build philosophical horror through formal repetition rather than spectacle.
The decision to hold on Anderson's face across multiple iterations—subtle shifts in performance and framing that register the psychological weight of each awakening—is what transforms a high-concept premise into something that actually lands viscerally on a shoestring budget.