Tag Archives: thriller

Detective City Angel: A Film by Alessandro Cima

by Cimaxion


 

MATURE CONTENT AND LANGUAGE
First, here’s a nice review and interview about the film at Dangerous Minds. Want to follow a secret identity artist through a dangerous Los Angeles as he escapes and hits like a criminal? Hang on and watch carefully. You may need to watch it 14 times to catch the drift. But you’ve probably got that kind of time anyway. This is a Los Angeles crime film. But it’s as if several films on celluloid fused together and what you end up with is an art film that gets overwhelmed by urban documentary and then collapses into a narrative thriller. It’s filled with hints, clues, evidence and misdirection. Images, ideas and sounds bounce off each other, mirror each other. There are secrets in this film. You have to watch carefully, through layers to catch things. I’ve tried to make a film that moves like disjointed thoughts toward the preordained ending. Continue reading …

In the Shadow: A Short Film Noir by Fabrice Mathieu

by Cimaxion

Written and directed by Fabrice Mathieu, ‘In the Shadow’ is a film noir about the separate lives of shadows.  It is made entirely from existing film noir shadow shots. What happens when a person’s shadow kills its ‘wearer’ and lives its own life? I love all of this film noir stuff with black and white shadows and contrast. The sense of graphic dread is missing from mainstream films today.  This short film is apparently a prequel for a feature length project.

The Thomas Beale Cipher

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

This excellent short film was made by Andrew S. Allen, utilizing a form of rotoscoping that creates a flat paper cutout look. The story follows the strange and suspenseful activities of a Professor White who sets out to decode one of the famous Thomas Beale ciphers which supposedly reveals the location of an enormous stash of gold that has remained a secret since 1820.

The director is also a founding member of the Short of the Week web site which has more information about the film.

There’s screening and press information at ThomasBealeCipher.com.

Horror Short: Helping Hand

by Cimaxion

Adult Content – Not For Children Under 13

This is a graphic horror film.  It’s not intended for young children.  If you are under 13, do not watch this before discussing it with your parents!  Seriously.  Also, you should probably not watch it if you are at risk from sudden fear, anxiety or shock.

A woman answers the phone late at night and does not recognize the voice on the other end.

This is my own contribution to the specific horror genre exemplified by the series of Saw movies.  It also has some of the qualities of the moral warning fairy tales in which awful things happen to innocents because of relatively minor errors in judgment.

It’s really fun to make a hardcore scary little movie for Halloween!  I’ve wanted to make a horror film for quite a while and just never had the perfect opportunity.  It’s a very simple film but it can really give some people a bad scare.
Continue reading …