Short Film: Baits

Director: Jacopo Calatroni

Released: 2013

Contains spoilers

Jacopo Calatroni as the vampire

Sometimes less is more. Let’s take Baits as an example, coming in at less than 5 minutes the film manages to tell a story – albeit simplistic given the short time frame. Whilst it eschews much characterisation and certainly avoids anything too complex in narrative, it does what it does well and the short running time actually saves it from needing the characterisation and advanced narrative.

waking

After a bright opening, a coffee shop with girls enjoying winter beverages as the soundtrack is filled with a Christmas song, we know we are watching a film set at Christmas and the move into a starkly filtered photography is all the more telling for the contrast. Two girls (Marta Bertolotti and Sara Ballerani) wake in separate parts of a disused building. One of them is bleeding.

hunting

Also in the building is a third girl (Elena Serra) and a vampire (Jacopo Calatroni) , who sets out hunting the girls. The look for the vampire was more Nosferatu than anything else and the film has the hunt but also shows the narrative of how the girls got there and why – not bad given the running time. At the time of writing this article there is no IMDb page that I can find but the short is on YouTube so I have embedded it below.