Strategic, strong, streamlined story structure destroys contrivances demonstrated straightaway constructed with strikingly stressful, visceral strangeness striving for satire and scares.
The fifth entry in the Horror-Rama Film Festival was the Italian short film Script. It’s a dark and stormy night when a woman is writing a story but everything she writes happens as she’s writing it until the killer in her script gets her. This is the first among so many clever fake outs in an innovative new way of telling a story within a story. It cuts to a couple discussing the story yhe wife just wrote that we just saw. They deconstruct horror stories while analyzing the present script they’re reading together. This where things get really interesting.
Director Piero Cannata sets up good jump scares that feel earned not cheap. There’s no fake jump scares either. The fakeouts mentioned beforehand refer to how he keeps subverting expectations cleverly with the story within a story concept. Impressive practical effects are used for all the gory goodness involved too.
I like the score with a haunting melodic piano and pulse pounding bass. It adds tension tremendously.
Overall, it’s the writing that takes this to another level. It’s a tightly wound story full of intricacies that make for an exhilarating puzzle to solve. One of the joys of foreign films is how differently other countries approach storytelling. The meta take on what makes good horror stories adds humorous remarks and makes you think simultaneously. It’s reminiscent of Scream but done in new refreshing ways. Another highlight to the Horror-Rama Film Festival, I’d highly recommend this. And remember, its best to read between the lines about what you wrote when writing about writing, am I right?
Grade 9/10
Chris Majtenyi
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