It
is hardly surprising this North London house has such bad vibes. Hippies used
to live there—just like the Manson Family and Bill Ayers. They might have
attained their lofty occult goals, but a malevolent power remains. It will
torment the unsuspecting new caretaker in director-producer-screenwriter-editor
Thomas Perrett’s short film Commune (trailer here), which screens during
the 2017 Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema.
It
sounds like a good deal. Tom can live in the spacious house rent-free, as long
as he chases away the squatters. It is even furnished, sort of. It definitely
looks like the previous tenants were stoners. The abandoned baby carriage is a
little creepy, but it is nothing compared to some of the flyers they left
behind. Promising means of “transcending” the earthly body, the “Godless
Commune of Sodom” probably made the Process Church look like Unitarians.
Obviously,
Tom is in for it (especially since Kubrick’s The Shining is one of the director’s key influences). However, the
way Perrett goes about making things go bump in the night is pretty smart and
convincing. He definitely has highly-attuned horror movie instincts, often
suggesting rather than outright showing, leaving room to let viewer
imaginations do his work for him. It also must be readily asserted, there is a
climatic bit that is totally freaky.
