Dark Harvest:
A Night Of Short Folk Horror Films
Cert: 15 / 120 mins / Event Trailer
This special evening
of independent shorts in Reading’s Biscuit Factory cinema was a sold-out screening, which is always a delight in this day and age. Although it soon became apparent this was may have been because the cast/crew from a number of the films were present (fair play though, who doesn’t want to see their work on the big screen?). Not only did this mean Polite Applause™ after every short (fair play, still), it also meant pre-screening speeches from the front of the auditorium from people who - quite ironically - seemed not to realise that they were speaking at a normal conversational volume in a room scientifically designed to deaden all sound that’s not coming out of the auditorium speakers*1. In short, I have no idea what you lovely people were saying, but you looked delighted to be there and that’s what’s important...
Black Samphire
14 mins, 2023, Dir. Alexander Vanegas.
Set in the present day as two young women check into an Airbnb in the fenlands, this is a fairly minimalist take on forgotten folklore reaching across the centuries through a forbidden herb, mixed with an environmental awareness mesage. Enthusiastically produced and solidly performed, it’s nevertheless a little too abstract to get the most out of its short runtime.
The Corpse Road
12 mins, 2023, Dir. Joseph Daly.
A 16th century story of a peasant dragging the body of his mother-in-law across hills and fells so that she can be buried in consecrated ground, this is a truncated study of obligation, guilt and madness which suffers from barely-intelligible, shouted dialogue (and in middle-english with heavy northern accents, to boot) and black humour being trowelled on before the audience has had any chance to warm to the main character. Oh, and watching this on a cinema-sized screen, you can clearly see the ‘corpse’ breathing. The rest of the audience appreciated it more than I did, to be fair.
Silvanus Park
1 min, 2021, Dir. Laura E. Hall.
A very compact retooling of the found-footage genre, presented as a 60-second Instagram story complete with flash-cuts, on-screen captions and the portrait-mode aspect ratio. Zippy and to-the-point, what the film lacks in suspense if more than makes up for in style.
The Estrogen Gospel
16 mins, 2024, Dir. Robyn Adams.
Ah. It gives me absolutely no pleasure to say this was Dark Harvest’s very own horrific elephant in the room. Looking like it’s been filmed on smartphones from a decade ago, The Estrogen Gospel features no non-ambient lighting, a script which feels like it was written by one person in a 2am insomnia haze then not re-read in daylight, delivered by non-actors apparently seeing the lines for the first time, that audio recorded on the phones’ in-built microphones, and so many shots out-of-focus to varying degrees that it cannot possibly be deliberate. Considering this is actually the title which had me attending the event to begin with and how much I wanted to be on-side with it, it’s evidently unwatchable to the point where it was hands-down the entry of the night where the most people decided to have a toilet-break within its duration. While the aforementioned applause did still occur over the credits, the previously enthusiastic patron to my right just sat and firmly shook her head.*2.
My Dreams Have Been Dark Of Late
3 mins, 2023, Dir. Joshua Warren.
A short and faintly comedic story of guilt and regret, this is nonetheless a fascinating effects-piece as a medieval knight is slowly crushed by his own imploding armour. Interesting to watch play out, but ultimately its brief runtime means the film doesn’t leave the viewer with much to dwell upon…
Blackthorn
18 mins, 2023, Dir. Chris Ratcliff.
A present-day study of the anxieties of moving into an already close-knit neighbourhood and the paranoia behind drawn curtains, Blackthorn skips along well enough, but mumbled dialogue with a single-mic setup often works against its effectiveness. The film wants to feel like an episode of Inside No. 9, but ultimately comes off more like the ‘new neighbours’ sketch from Fist Of Fun. That said, it’s well paced, entertaining and builds its atmosphere deftly.
The Blighted Crown
2 mins, 2023, Dir. Bianca Diana Ines Olingheru.
This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fairytale parody is an object lesson in rescuing a faintly drab set with superb post-production design. However, this is a wry effects-reel and little else.
The Sin-Eater
17 mins, 2023, Dir. Kelly Holmes.
Essentially the headline feature of the evening, this tale of a young 19th century mother in rural Wales trying to absolve the soul of her baby who’s died before he could be baptised has immaculate performance and production, as well as flawless dual-lingual scripting, with fully measured commitment from its very first frame. When the effects-work finally comes into play, it’s complex but comparatively unobtrusive. Everyone involved in The Sin-Eater should be incredibly proud.
Blight
24 mins, 2022, Dir. Craig Sinclair.
And to finish, the overtly comic story of a Middle Ages subsistence farmer who’s cursed with hiccups by a witch in the woods. Every bit as silly as that sounds, the careful pacing and deadpan delivery make for a darkly intriguing watch. Blight is effectively a drawn-out sketch, the likes of which would have peppered one episode of a half-hour sketch show on BBC2 or Channel 4 in the early 2000s. Presented as this one-piece it’s slightly too long, although once suspects that’s also part of the joke.
And there we have it. A thoroughly enjoyable evening, and it's great to see short independent films accessible to people not attending a dedicated festival, in the environment which they were meant to be viewed: the cinema. Thanks and congratulations to all who organised Dark Harvest and to all whose work was exhibited (yes, even if that work Wasn't For Me). See you for the next showcase!
*1 Hand on heart, the sound setup at the Reading Biscuit Factory is not ideal, with speakers situated solely behind the screen and apparently no complementary surrounds. This means for the whole room to hear, the volume has to be cranked up to the point where individual dialogue becomes almost unintelligible (and as much as I complain about clarity for at least one of the films here, the Biscuit Factory's arrangement is really not anything that the production's sound designer or mixer can take into advance account). And while I’d normally think this might be a by-product of the independent nature of the evening’s programming, the bottom line is that Timestalker suffered from exactly the same problem earlier that day, and in a different screen. I dread to think what a noisy blockbuster would sound like in there… [ BACK ]
*2 You’re absolutely right of course, The Estrogen Gospel is still quantifiably better than the *zero* films I’ve made. [ BACK ]
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