This Dark Thought
“This Dark Thought” is an intriguing script that has a lot of potential in being a successful short psychological horror. The atmosphere it builds upon leaves a haunting feeling that lingers on after finishing the script.
Mary is an astronomer of sorts. She’s meticulous with intricate notes of star positions and is obviously fascinated by what the night sky has to offer. She hears crying coming from her little sister’s room and goes in to check on her. She carries her back upstairs to so she can continue observing the sky. That’s when the script really picks up and becomes super intense.
I personally really loved how the atmosphere was crafted in this piece. The sounds, the colors, and even the lighting. I could visually interpret what the writer was describing and that alone added more to the tension that’s brought in later towards the end. It sucks you in like an endless vortex. There’s so much depth, it’s hard to not be captivated by the surroundings in the attic.
That being said, the short does fall short of characterization and explaining certain events that unfold. Like, why is she the one who has to go check on her little sister? Where are her parents? Obviously she’s 16 and the baby sister is… well, a baby. Is she babysitting? Some backstory would have been nice to help ground us into Mary. She also falls short of having a motivation. We are told what she does, but the actions hardly ever define who her character is as a person. They’re generic and become a bit flat. For a short film, it’s hard to write good characters, and to that extent I wouldn’t be drawn out of the short film itself. But as a script, a little bit more character traits would help really set who she is as a character. Her scratching on the desk was a really nice move on the writer’s part because that showed us a part of her personality. I wanted more specificity and for the writer to add more of those tiny details.
Now, I’m not entirely sure how a “black patch” would look visually when she’s already looking into the night sky. It’d be too hard to tell the difference between colors. I wasn’t too fond of how it was used as a metaphor for her “dark thought” of having to do something awful. It felt too on the nose for me and it wasn’t convincing enough. I felt a little down that THAT’S what is driving her motivation towards the end. Albeit rather mysterious and unique, something more original than what’s out there, I was a little let down because it seems it doesn’t quite match up with what the writer has set up with the atmosphere and setting. It could be beneficial to build up on the tension by introducing more of the attic. What if she see’s something in the attic from a reflection that reflects her dark thought? There’s a lot more room to play if the writer takes out the sky aspect and make this dark thought of Mary not only more visually appealing, but also more impactful.
Overall I really liked the writing. It’s a bit clunky in a few spots and some over-direction of camerawork, which isn’t always a bad thing. I’m a firm believer that you can direct the director without having to specifically say what kind of shot it is; unless the writer happens to be the director. The pacing was well-done and like stated before, the imagery was haunting and had a lot of depth. This is one I would really like to see what they could do with a short film. There’s a lot of intense parts that had me re-read what was just said so I could soak in the imagery and possible outcome; hence a telescope in a hovering hand over a baby.
