So Pretty – review

Directed by: Al Lougher


Release date: 2012


Contains spoilers

So Pretty is a short film with a huge amount of class. Called the anti-Twilight by film school rejects, I don’t know if I’d agree. Rather it holds up Twilight to scrutiny (the book is part of the short) and suggests to fans thereof that it is romantic fiction (which it is) but the actual genre as a whole is so much more, it is bloody and brutal. As such it is almost more a wake-up call for those who believe (as some do) that vampires begin and end with Stephenie Meyer.

How does it achieve this…

reading Twilight

The film is set on a night time train. The passengers stare into space or find their heads nodding as sleep creeps upon them. At a station a woman called Lisa (Melanie Crim) gets on board. She takes a seat that faces the four other passengers, retrieves Twilight from her bag and starts reading. She is interrupted by a man who says that he has read all of the series and he found it an interesting take on vampires. He introduces himself as Sean (Jeremy Palko, Vampire Diaries season 4).

Sean and Lisa

Lisa, it appears, is a bit of a fan girl. She is reading the book for the third time, her hair is dyed as she ‘vamped’ for a costume party. Sean, however, wonders at how easy the vampires in Twilight have it – it was much more difficult in Stoker’s Dracula. Lisa is unaware of who Bram (as Sean refers to him) was but then ties the name Dracula into the 1992 movie, she didn’t like it. Sean is amused at the notion that a ‘vampire fan’ would dislike Dracula.

vampire eyes

He suggests that vampiric life would be hard. Always hunted, and consumed by guilt over the victims killed. When she suggests that a vampire could eat animals, like the Cullens do, he dismisses the idea – humans eat animals, not vampires. Lisa says it is ok to change the rules and suggests that vampires are mysterious, misunderstood and so pretty with their sparkling. Sean starts a game of ‘which of the other passengers would she hunt?’ Little does she know that Sean is a vampire, the victim is already selected and that life and literature are not always the same.

blood soaked

There are only a few bits of lore offered in this. We know that vampires must feed from humans (as Sean infers this), they cast no reflection, they have neon eyes when hunting, fangs and razor like nails. That’s all the definitive lore, though there might be an indication of mind reading but that isn’t clear and Sean's knowledge of his victim may have been gained by more mundane means. As for the film itself, it is very beautifully shot, the vampire eyes looked fantastic and there is a natural flow between the two leads.

If you want to know who the victim is then the film is embedded below and, at time of review, a sequel is imminent. I reckon this to be worth a strong 7 out of 10 and the imdb page is here.