Dir. Blake Simon (2024)
An entity searching for its own identity runs into some college students that can help it become something new.
Short films can be a double edged sword of sorts for filmmakers. On the one hand, it's easy to not get lost in a narrative and forget your point because there's not a whole lot of runtime to work with. You're not too worried about overstaying your welcome, as long as the time doesn't put it into that no-man's-land of "too long to be a short and too short to be a feature." On the other hand, sometimes the point that you're trying to make are too dense to fully flesh out in such a short period of time. When dealing with deep social issues, it can be a lot to comment on without feeling like you're rushing things. Director Blake Simon manages to do a phenomenal job with avoiding those difficulties while hitting the perfect runtime sweet spot with his new short Faces, winner of Best International Short at Fantasia and appearing at Fantastic Fest this week.
Judy (Cailyn Rice) is new in town, and she just received an invite to a college party from frat-y douchebag Brad (Ethan Daniel Corbett). Her cousin Margaret (Hanna Eisenbath) seems to want to warn her away from attending, but Judy has made up her mind. Unfortunately for Brad, there's a lot more on her mind than a typical teenage girl, and she has him pegged as her next target. But what is her ultimate end-game? What exactly does she want with Brad, and, more importantly, will it ultimately make her happy?
I'm being a bit vague in the description of the short because you really need to see it to get a good view of what Simon has planned here. We know fairly quickly that Judy is a mysterious entity and not a regular teenager, and while audiences will likely guess shortly thereafter what she's looking for, Simon manages to make it so much more complex than it would be in a regular short film. Faces is a sort of short form, horror-centric, LGBT version of Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, and it's just as freaky. By focusing the short on an identity perspective, there are so many different interpretations that can be had based on an individual audience member's point of view.
Rice does a great job with Judy, giving the character the kind of nuance necessary to make this "monster" more than the thing that goes bump in the night. It's an empathetic performance, and it's one that make you really feel for the instability and confusion that her character experiences. Corbett, likewise, puts a lot into Brad, especially once shit goes down. I've always thought it must be difficult to play a character that's a terrible person, especially when the basis is unlike your real-life persona, and Corbett does a great job of making him incredibly unlikeable even at first glance. It's after the change, however, that he really shines, as New Brad is a deeply flawed and unhappy version of what Rice shows through the first two acts.
Everything in this short works. Andrew Fronczak's cinematography is beautiful and haunting, and Simon's writing allows the characters room to explore while never feeling overbearing. The score is creepy, and Rice's performance is utterly terrifying at times. There's not a whole lot more that you can want from a short, and at just fourteen minutes, it never feels longer than absolutely necessary. It's difficult to put this much into such a small package, but Simon's handling of the material and his commitment to the message is flawless.
Ultimately, Faces is an apt name for a short film that is about how we see ourselves versus how we want to be, and whether even the accomplishment of our goals will be enough to validate those incompatibilities. As a trans allegory, it is excellently crafted and yet still mysterious, and that's where the power of the short really lies. Simon doesn't answer all of those questions for his audience, and perhaps poses even more than they would've had going in. They're not unanswerable either, a flaw of many imperfect filmmakers who pose questions but never seek to answer them out of lack of ability rather than storytelling intelligence. No, Simon knows exactly what he's doing here, and he does so in a way that is both compelling and incredibly honest. Faces is a damn fine short, and I'd love to see more come from the world Simon has created.
Who this movie is for: Short horror fans, Monster movie devotees, Two-faced teenagers
Bottom line: Faces is excellent, full stop. It's genuinely scary and the performances within are top-notch. Simon is a very good filmmaker, and I'd love to see more from him in the future. If you're looking for a good horror short, you're just simply not going to do a whole lot better than this one. Check it out if you get the chance, and it's showing at Fantastic Fest this week as part of their Short Fuse Block.
