Short Film: Hunger

This was a 2014 short that was directed by Brian Frager and is around 18 minutes long. It is one that doesn’t broadcast the identity of the monster (in this case a monstrous child) rather there is certainly mention of a hunger, there is flesh eating (it seems) and blood drinking and so I think the tropes carry us into vampire territory.

It starts with a mother, Dawn (London Vale), holding her daughter Carla (Kristin Coffman) in the background as stove hobs seems to give off gas in the background... We then cut to them driving, with the child sitting in the back seat. Dawn promises they’ll never be apart. A truck comes hurtling by causing them to come off the road and stop. A Women’s Aid advert about domestic violence comes on the radio, which dawn switches off before driving on.

Dawn checks the house

They get to a house and Dawn looks around and is clearly jumpy and carries a knife. There is a knock at the door, with a call out, and so Dawn answers it. It is a neighbour, Beatrice (Paula Bellamy-Franklin), who hadn’t been told that there would be guests coming. Dawn says she is the owner’s niece and she is house sitting but Beatrice spots her black eye and asks if *he* is with her. She meets Carla briefly, who says she is hungry. Dawn explains that they were just going to the store.

eye injury

In the store Dawn is paying (and being made to remove her shades – store policy – and reveal her injured eye) when she realises that Carla is missing. After a frantic moment a store employee takes her to her, she is sitting in an office. On the way back to the house, as Carla eats some raw meat, they are pulled over by a cop (Lowell Dean) due to a busted taillight. Dawn adjusts her top and we see a wound above her breast and, after checking her licence, the cop makes her go to his car. There is a radio call about a murder at the store but the cop has his hands full with Carla…

feeding

So, the implication is that Carla is always hungry and clearly powerfully strong – she, off screen, overpowers the cop. When the hunger takes her, her eyes seem to go black. A radio programme later suggests that Dawn’s boyfriend has been dismembered and the assumption has to be that it was by (or on behalf of) Carla. The wound in Dawn’s chest is where the daughter suckles her blood – we see that during the running time.

This was a well made little short and it is certainly worth 18 minutes of your time. The imdb page is here.