Directors: Lucy Gouldthorpe & Katrina Irawati Graham (segments)
Release date: 2019
Contains spoilers
Dark Whispers is a portmanteau film with a wraparound that sees a woman, Clara (Andrea Demetriades), sorting out the effects left by her deceased mother. Among them is the book Dark Whispers, which she starts to read – until the book unnerves her but then she finds she cannot destroy it and must continue reading.
Not a shock to discover that the shorts – which seem to have been previously made shorts, as is often the case – make up the stories of the book. Whilst they do contain supernatural elements the film didn’t feel horror to me, more thriller with almost a Tales of the Unexpected vibe to some. The shorts are all directed by female directors. We are looking at this for one film in particular plus a vampire connection in another.
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| a bite |
The vampire film is called Grillz and was directed by Lucy Gouldthorpe. Milla (Lucy Gouldthorpe) is playing the online dating game and is getting a lewd suggestion from one prospective beau. He doesn’t show for a liaison so she meets a second, username Derwentparkdreamboat (Jared Goldsmith). Whilst they are having a drink we notice that her teeth seem too numerous for her mouth. Later, in an underpass, she comes on to him, but as she bites his neck she breaks her canine teeth – an accident that does not help her date, however.
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| new fangs |
Her next search online leads her to look for a date with a dentist, and she successfully hooks up with Graham (Tosh Greenslade). On their date she is self-consciously hiding her teeth, he makes her show him and takes her to his surgery. Some dentistry magic and she has some fancy metal fangs… But what will be his reward for such an act of altruism? That I won't spoil but we can note that the vampire in this has a reflection. It is a short, short – only around the 5–6-minute mark and so the story is very simply drawn, the filming black and white.
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| childbirth |
The other I want to mention is entitled White Song and was directed by Katrina Irawati Graham and tells the story of Raesita (Alana Golingi) and her heartbreak when her love, Andrew (Luke Wright), dies. The story is told by the Kuntil Anak (Derty Eka Putria) who is drawn to her sorrow. The credits to the film contain a note that “Also known as the Pontianak, the Kuntil Anak is the traditional Indonesian ghost of a woman who dies in childbirth.” Sometimes the kuntilanak is depicted as vampiric of course.
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| giving comfort |
In this not so much. She does tell us her story, of her being married and her husband (I Gusti Made Oka Wibawa) being physically abusive and subjecting her to marital rape. Of the difficult birth that kills her and a child born in anger. However, her interaction with Raesita is one of comfort and love – though her idea of comfort is to make the pregnant Raesita become as she is… This was interesting and a nice take on the myth.
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| standing above victim |
The other shorts were of a varying quality, though the collection altogether is worth looking at. However, mark the caution that it is more thriller (perhaps chiller) than horror. In the case of anthologies, I score for the vampire segment(s) – in this we only have the one – White Song being more of a genre interest as there is no vampiric activity. Grillz is cute enough but is really short and very simplistic – 5.5 out of 10.
The imdb page is here.
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