Sunday, October 25, 2020

Short Film: Mutant Virus


A college effort, by the looks of it, and a budget of just $65, this is a 5-minute short directed by Jonah Henrickson and there isn’t a huge amount to say about it. A man (A.J. Brady) with a strange skin tone looks down on a group of people. A girl (Morgan Aranda) is nearby and he tells her not to worry – he’s a good guy.

The three below are vampires and are discussing the merits, or otherwise, of student blood. The girl, on request, gives him a ball to distract them (actually probably more get their attention) and he throws it. They notice him, now wearing a gas mask.

A.J. Brady as Blue Walker

One of them (Manuel Hernandez) knows of a vampire hunter known as Blue Walker, who is said to wear a gas mask. He is truly an immortal, and hunts vampires for fun, apparently. The other vampires are dismissive of this until he is suddenly down by them and fights them… It is in the fight choreography we see the greatest evidence of the amateur nature of the short for it is very unrealistic – but as I assume this to be a student film I can’t criticise too much.

Mickey on display

He calls himself a mutant virus, what this means is unclear. The fact that this immortal vampire killer wears a gasmask is an affectation, but the Mickey Mouse gloves, clearly on display, verges on genius. This isn’t going to be the best thing you’ll ever see, quite likely the opposite, but as an attempt to cut film-making teeth, it is what it is.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

2 comments:

Jonah Henrickson said...

Hey, I’ve read your review on my short film and I thought it’s a good review. By the way, I changed the title of the short film to “The Hollow Forest Chronicles” if only because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (which made sense, at least for me, why Amazon took down my short film from Prime Video). From a filmmaker’s perspective, I like working on this film a lot better than how I made my previous short films and videos, and I’ll be honest with you, I agree with what you said about it. Specifically, like the two issues you pointed out such as the fight choreography and the Mickey display. Despite the decent special / visual effects via editing (where they can move and run fast like they have superhuman speed), I agree that this fight choreography scene looks amateur and unrealistic. If anything, I would’ve rather stick to my original idea of how I want the fight scene to actually look like than having someone like one of my friends or my oldest sister to talk me out about it. I also agree about the Mickey display situation because I’m not gonna lie, I think it’s silly for me to do that, even that it was unintentional for me to do that. So yeah, I thought I like your review on my short film. I’m actually planning on turning this short film into either a movie (franchise) or a TV series in the future. If you have any advice on what I could’ve done better with the short film, you’re more than welcome to let me know.

Taliesin_ttlg said...

Hey Jonah, thanks for the comment. Every filmmaker has to start somewhere and I am glad that the criticism has been taken in the spirit it was given :) You were cutting your teeth, as it were, and achieved more than many will :)

I'm not a filmmaker, so I don't know what advice I could give that way, especially technical - except letting you know what I like and don't I guess. But what I do know is vampires. My email address is in the side bar so if you ever want to run ideas backwards and forwards feel free