Short Film: Avulsion

With a ten-minute run time. This Steve Boyle directed short is a classy (and gory) piece that – to understand why it is here – needs to be spoiled and so I apologise at the outset. Spoiling it also allows me to touch on a nice piece of lore at the very end.

Portia (Erica Field) puts on a gramophone record and muses that you never really know if *they* will go through with it. They being her clients.

We see Marty (Cameron Hurry) enter the house, he carries a briefcase awkwardly, clutched to his chest. He takes a seat and fiddles with objects on the table next to him, accidentally dropping one – the noise it makes prompts Portia to invite him into her room. He says that he has brought some things and, the impression we get is that of prostitute and trick. She needs to know what he wants, exactly, and he whispers his desire into her ear.

gory work

She is fixing a drink for them as he comes behind her, pulls a plastic bag over her head and begins to stab her violently. He wants her to look at him as she dies. He puts a plastic sheet out and begins (as per the title) to dismember her, starting with her limbs. However, when he starts to cut at her neck her eyes flash open and she says, in a commanding voice, “no” (and this is our big spoiler, of course). The one-hour bell rings and he gets photos on his smart phone (up to now the technology we've seen has placed us decades before) and leaves.

true face

Of course, we now know that she might be dismembered but she is very much still alive (or animated, at least). Torso reaches out with tendons to pull the limbs back into place. She looks to the mirror, which was hidden behind a painting, and what she sees reflected is monstrous, not the human face she shows the world and it is this that was the nice lore, not entirely original but I like it when the mirror trope is changed to make it show the true face.

Erica Field as Portia

And I have to apologise again as the fact that she is a vampire, making money by allowing people to live out their murderous fantasies is the twist. She has two rules, never sever the head and no mirrors (for obvious reasons). The short is well done, pretty darn gory and a lot of fun.

The imdb page is here.

I’ve not embedded the short as it is age restricted and only viewable on YouTube but you can watch it here