Short Film: Allure

This was a 2004 short film directed by Pat Pizzuto and is just over 21 minutes in length. It is fairly simplistic story wise and starts with a guy, Marty (Eric Constein), going into a bar and ordering a drink.

The bartender, John (Gadon Johnson), suggests it might be Marty’s lucky night as a blonde across the room is giving him the eye. She’s a nice girl, confides John, and her name is Cora (Kabrina Carlson). Unfortunately, Marty is on the shy side and John has to persuade him to go talk to her but eventually he does so.

Kabrina Carlson as Cora

They talk for a while, he mentions being a computer programmer and she suggests that she is sort of a live-in nurse. Her three sisters travelled to England and contracted a strange illness. It has made them sensitive to sunlight and affected their behaviours. At one point Marty asks whether they might be vampires and Cora laughs, congratulating him on his sense of humour.

kiss

John sends over shots and Cora asks the young man to go back to her apartment. Once there she fixes him a drink, red wine, and then slinks off for a moment. He looks around and finds a book entitled Blood Relatives, the Book of the Undead. She returns in her negligée and is insistent that he drink some more wine (she has no drink). They kiss and then there is a howling noise as she looks upwards – however, Marty is having trouble seeing straight, almost as if he had been drugged…

sisters

And there we’ll leave the story. The dialogue didn’t flow as well as it might but Constein seemed very natural, at least in the bar, and whilst Carlson’s performance seemed more affected it suited the character. I was unsure about the soundtrack, the piano being too much geared towards a Hallmark moment for my taste. However, you can check it out yourself as the film is available for streaming or download at the archive as well as being on Amazon Prime.

I did find an IMDb page but, whilst the accompanying illustration and blurb was right the movie date, cast and crew were incorrect and it seems two films have been merged into one entry.