Thursday, October 13, 2016

Brooklyn Horror ’16: Eveless (short)

It is sort of like Joan Rivers’ Rabbit Test (her only film as a director), except more apocalyptic and dystopian. It is something like the year 2525 and men are still barely alive, but apparently women have not survived. Two desperate outlaw researchers try to rectify the sorry state of the human condition, but it won’t be pretty in Antonio Padovan’s short film Eveless (trailer here), which screens during the inaugural Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Apparently, a sinister monolithic corporation has taken control over human reproduction, because having a lot of consumers out there spending money is bad for business. Go figure that one. The upshot remains depressingly clear. There are no women left in the world. Hoping to strike a revolutionary blow, Man 1 is conducting a radical experimental procedure on Man 2. However, neither the sanitary conditions or their respective psychological states inspire a great deal of confidence.

In a way, Eveless would make a good pairing with Pablo González’s Cord, because both present dark but decidedly non-sterile visions of the future. In this case, the confined, claustrophobic setting is literally overflowing with intriguingly detailed yet vaguely disturbing props and trappings, representing quite a triumph from production designer Roxy Martinez. The nervous energy of its two-handed cast of Vin Kridakorn and Greg Engbrecht aptly completes the unsettling and unbalanced picture. At a mere seven minutes, Eveless is quite a distinctive piece of world-building. Definitely worth checking out, it screens this Sunday (10/16) as part of the Head Trip: Alternate Horror Shorts block, along with the uber-stylish Disco Inferno, at the 2016 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.