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September 28, 2011

X Marks the Spot (Short Film Review)

Review: X Marks the Spot (2011)
[Short film]

Director : Travis Legge

Looking to murder some vulnerable young women? There's an app for that!

In X Marks the Spot, the twisted short film from Twisted Central Productions, Abigail is a young woman addicted to the Friend Tracker app on her Blackberry. She won't get off the damn thing. She should have listened to the privacy warnings from her friend Chloe, however. Friend Tracker soon becomes a Fiend Attractor when a creepy dude name Patrick starts following Abigail's every move using the app: a stalker's mobile wet dream.

I love the premise of horror movies in which our own disregard for modern digital privacy comes back to bite us in the ass, but X Marks the Spot doesn't do much with its premise. The coming of the killer is telegraphed from the very start and plays out fairly predictably without much tension. As a low budget short, X Marks the Spot also suffers from rough sound quality and unfortunate day-for-night shots. Interestingly, X Marks the Spot doesn't attempt to stylize, dwell on, or glamorize its violence, but then again there's nothing particularly graphic about it to show. The whole short seems geared toward a visual gag at the end that, while darkly funny, doesn't seem to justify the short's entire running time.

A good idea, but X Marks the Spot mostly misses its target.

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