Wednesday, October 3, 2012

31 Days of Horror--Day 3 BREACH (2008)


Surveillance equipment is both a blessing and a curse these days.  People want to be vigilant about protecting their homes, but after all the Paranormal Activity films, one can be a little wary about what you "catch" on camera.  I personally love the gimmick of these films, because they make the most banal hallways seem threatening.  The first film focused the audience's attention almost entirely on a doorway between the bedroom and the hall.  One of my students said, quite rightly, "Nothing happens.  A door moves!"  Yes, but the door moves seemingly on it's own, which means that there's a menace in your house, watching you, which you can't see!  Heh.

Part of the pleasure of haunted houses and malevolent furniture are the noises that these places emit.  A series of diegetic sounds occur without any source.  Did that noise come from under the bed?  Or from the closet?  Or is something scratching at the window?  When I was small, and our heat in our house would make noise, I would lay under the covers, terrified and unmoving, thinking that if I just didn't breath or make a sound, I'd escape whatever or whomever was causing those noises.  One can never truly explain the terror of baseboard heat!  Sound without a source is so scary, because your imagination can fill in the terrifying blanks. (I'm a country girl, and I swore that Bigfoot lived in our woods, too.)

Fewdio Entertainment's Breach (Kirk B.R.Woller, 2008) is one of those wonky surveillance equipment films, where this poor bloke keeps hearing that he has a "breach," and keeps investigating that "breach," and really, you just want him to call someone and have them check it out with him.  The camerawork in this short, with that freaky green tint, warps every inch of this guy's pretty average home.  I love so many of the films on the Fewdio site, but Breach by far is my favorite.  I also recommend The Closet.

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