short film: Coven

This short movie by Nicholas Grant comes in just under 14-minutes and was released in 2019. On YouTube it is listed as Coven Season 1: Episode 1 and a look at Grant’s IMDb page indicates there are several more shorts. However, these are not immediately available, and this stands on its own to be fair.

Melissa Brown as Natalia

This is likely because it is fairly simple, but often that’s all we need. It starts with a woman, Natalia (Melissa Brown), asking to be granted… well it’s at TMtV so obviously it is to be made a vampire. She assures the listener, Mina (Paula Ramirez), that she is not like others who have asked – she was born for it.

Andrea and Natalia

Mina does turn her but then explains that she may have turned but she is not part of the coven yet. There is an initiation, she must kill a friend or family member and it must happen before midnight the next night or she’ll be killed. She arranges to meet a friend, Andrea (Aimee Trujillo), at a parking lot but (probably due to posturing) Andrea manages to get back in her car – where she has a cross, Unfortunately she dropped her keys and it becomes a waiting game…

turned

Simple is often effective but this is undermined by a question around the fact that Andrea has a phone, which has signal, and yet she doesn’t call 911 – kindly, perhaps she was too panicked, but that is very kind. Yet, as I mentioned, beyond this plotting issue the short is mostly effective. The only other gripe was some level issues on a couple of lines of dialogue. Nevertheless, it has put me in the mood to see the other episodes.

The imdb page is here.