Short Film: Jackal

This is a 12-minute short film, released in 2022 and directed by Will Patrick Roberts. My thanks to Everlost for putting me on to it.

It begins with the famous quotation from Bürger’s poem Lenore, “Denn Die Todten Reiten Schnell” {for the dead travel fast}, which is forever embedded into the vampire genre as Stoker quotes it in Dracula. Speaking of whom, we then see the caped figure of the Count (Samuel Falkingham). The year is 1822 and we are in the Land of the Phantoms (taken from Nosferatu) and we see a cloaked figure walking the landscape.

Alysia Dyke as Alina

As he enters a forest a man (Landon Sweeney) says “don’t move”. The man turns, removing his hood and revealing his face. He is Jacques (Bobby Sirrah) and he is less than impressed with the old-fashioned pistol aimed at him. The man doesn’t see a woman, Alina (Alysia Dyke), approach from behind and strike at him with a branch and once more to ensure he stays down. She picks up the flintlock and, despite protestation from Jacques, she shoots him.

Samuel Falkingham as the Count

There are more men in the woods and Jacques takes her through to a cave to hide. He knows the area and eventually tells her that the place used to be his home. He and his brother were imprisoned as conspirators but his captors needed a soldier who knew the land. His brother will be released if he succeeds in assassinating a mad Count. Alina is looking to escape but the Count seems to talk to her in her sleep, night is setting and folk may not be whom they seem…

The imdb page is here.