Ratking
2022 · 19m · USA
Directed by Eric Colonna
Genres: dark comedy, drama, horror
Tones: absurdist, dark, darkly comic, surreal, tense
A young couple in Northeast Los Angeles tries to have a lazy day and make it to the beach, but an enigmatic drifting skater shows up at their door with cryptic remarks — triggering an escalating spiral of paranoia, rats heard under the floorboards, and mounting dread that blurs the line between real threat and anxiety-induced hallucination.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Slamdance Grand Jury, THC-paranoia sensory replication, slow zooms and scratching rats. The whole concept is wired right into my frequency.
Colonna constructs the subjective experience of THC paranoia through slow zooms, handheld camera, and layered environmental sound — Slamdance Grand Jury suggests the form succeeds. The Souvenir comparison is generous but earned by ambition.
Slamdance Grand Jury Award for a film constructed to replicate the subjective experience of THC paranoia — slow imperceptible zooms, handheld, extreme close-ups, layered environmental sound. That sensory-state replication as the entire formal project is exactly the kind of risk I respect.
Reviews
The closest I've seen a film come to replicating the feeling of weed paranoia — when THC mixes with latent anxiety to send your amygdala into overdrive.
Really well executed short on pretty much every level — scripting, the look, performances, blocking. Really well made and darkly funny.
Festivals
- Slamdance Film Festival 2022, Grand Jury Prize
- Mammoth Lakes Film Festival 2022
- SF IndieFest 2022
- NYC Indie Film Festival 2022