by Marlon Wallace, The M Report
No Country for Old Men (2007) proved how effective a suspense film could be with minimal sound and an extreme lack of a musical score. It was probably the quietest thriller I’d ever seen, and yet still quite terrifying.
This short film by co-directors Eric Walter and Jon Parke rivals this year’s Oscar-winner by co-directors Joel and Ethan Coen as a sort of a “No Country for Old Women.” Instead of a mostly hushed yet aggressively-active chase, Walter and Parke make theirs a mostly loud yet passively-chilling following.
Here, an old woman, presumably widowed, living alone except for her dog, is stalked and essentially haunted, not by a psychotic bounty hunter, but a noise, or a series of noises. It’s not just haunting. This film, in fact, is an assault of sounds. It’s in the vein of The Raven or The Tell-Tale Heart, except there is none of Edgar Allan Poe’s psychological insight. Yet, all the Gothic charm as well as all the evocative and symbolic power remain.
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