Love Hurts – Short horror Film
In this Essay I am analysing the short horror film, Love Hurts, it is about a woman who very recently just had a fight with her boyfriend and to her grief and dismay she goes to the Toilet were she encounters a ghost like figure which.... keep reading.
The short starts off with a Skewed tracking shot of a mirror with meaningful writings on it, this is accompanied by a crescendo of a piano, this puts us in the world of the short film as it slowly develops what the short film is about and it slowly eases our senses to the rest of the film. The skewed shot which in the track gradually “Un-skews “ gives the viewers a bit of a surrealism and menacing feel this was also connoted by the high pitched “hissed” sound just as the frame “un-skews”, after that the name of the short is revealed written on the mirror, which I think is clever because it makes it seem “real” in a way, rather than flashing in/out the name of the film, they had it written in the mirror which is within the world of the film which gives the audience an eerie atmosphere the film name is then rubbed off by the Janitor which is shot with a medium shot of mirror catching the janitors’ reflection(and also reveals the setting) on the right side of the frame and to the left, still on the same shot, the fighting couple enters the scene, a 180 degree pan then is used to quickly focus to the main focal point of the story without cutting.
As the film carries on a shot of the metal sink with the words “D<3S 4-Ever” is highlighted using a close up tilted a bit to the side and the CGI Blood going between the heart writing, accompanied by a non diegetic eerie sound effect makes this shot an important shot as it draws a menacing ambience and is somehow linked to what is about to happen. After that shot a medium shot of the woman crying is used to surface her emotions, this is still accompanied by the eerie hollow air sound effect and is followed by one of the stall doors closing, after that no sound effect or ambiance sounds are used just the sound of the actress whimpering and turning around. After a second or so of the girl feeling sorry for herself she decides to get a tissue, shot through a medium wide shot framed by the sinks and tissue dispensers, she walks to one of the tissue dispensers and notices that it was empty so she makes her way to one of the bathroom stalls, she takes a sit on the toilet and takes a couple of handfuls of tissue, a medium close up is used her again to surface her emotions, showing that she’s still in pain, suddenly non diegetic thrilling sound effects kick in and a very subtle and eerie “help” and sniffing sounds (crying) are heard, she shifts her head closer to the divider she takes a look down and she notices to her terror blood spreading from the other stall, she stands up (medium shot) still focusing on the stall, whimpers from the door still heard, faint flashes of thrilling sound effect ambience comes in from time to time. A close up of the girl’s hand approaching the stall’ door knob, the depth of field focusing on the door handle itself, rather than the hand then shifting to the door handle when the hand hits it, this was used I think because the director wanted to focus more on the scenario the girl’s in and not the actual character, given she’s a big part of the short but the scenario is the even bigger part, as the hand gets closer to the knob, the lock suddenly shifts to occupied, then a reaction shot of the girl startled, this shows her being nervous and ultimately focusing on this new problem rather than the one she had before. The Girl instinctively then checks who/what’s inside the stall by going on her knees and looking, this was shot via a low angle close – up then panning to the right revealing a pair of feet with blood underneath.
The girl after this is now motivated to help the other person that’s inside, to double check she goes back in the stall she was in before and steps on the toilet to look over the stall with the trapped person inside, a shot of the person on the other stall is revealed to have stepped up to the toilet like the girl, which by this time is pulling her head up to look over, this is again accompanied by non diegetic “build up tension” sound effect making us know what happens next, a cliché revealing shot that shocks the viewers scaring them out of their seat, but cleverly that not what the director did, after the shot of the girl pulling her eyes over the next stall, a shot of an empty stall is used leaving the audience wanting more, as the empty stall was revealed, the tension building sound effect is cut effectively to cut all sounds to make way for the unnerving vibrating of the girls phone, she walks to her phone, and picks it up ( a small play on depth of field here, I don’t think it’s relevant) , from a medium shot, a crackling sound greets her hello and with the same shot tilting down a pool of blood is starting to bleed out of the toilet stall again the camera shifts focus on the girl again, as morphed low toned voice starts to speak out of the girls’ phone “help me!” she turns 180 degrees, slowly revealing her phone, and through a close up of the phone we see that blood flows out of it accompanied by tension connoting ambiance, after this she tries to make her way out of the room, but stereotypically she can’t, This part of the scene, her trying to escape and being under a lot of terror, I think is a negative stereotype for women, because it shows her to be in a total state of panic and helplessness, and I do think that most horror films, whether it be short or feature, portray women to be somewhat of a weak preview and this, I think will be challenged in my own short film.
After the girl “tried” to get out of the restroom, she gains composure for some reason; she’s still in the toilet! She turns around and focuses back on the toilet which just unlocked, a forward dolly shot of the toilet stall gives out an eerie feeling, building up to what’s about to happen. The girl then slowly, makes her way to the (now) unlocked stall; she reaches for it, medium close up of her arm reaching for the knob, then tilting up to her face, she slowly opens the door, and the camera (with no cuts) reveals the occupier of the stall, by panning down to a figure sat on the toilet seat the figure’s wrist slit open, a slow dolly forward on the figure with the girls arm reaching for her is used without any sound effects, this is a build up for what happens next which is a frightening shot of the figure facing the camera, it’s eyes blurred white, this then startles the girl, making her move back, slipping on the pile of blood and hitting her head on one of the stall doors, shown through a medium shot, her eyes shut closed showing that she’s in fact knocked out, then a medium shot of the frightening figure of the girl is shown, unorthodox movement from the figure leaves a sight of horror for the audience as it shows her to be an untamed force with only one target...to kill the girl, this is shown through 2 continuous shots a medium shot the figure grabbing a shaver and raising it getting ready to slice her up and a close up of the floor and the girls’ wrist coming into frame cut so deeply that blood splatters out of it.
This film is one of the best short films’ in youtube (ever made even), because of the following key points, Camera work, Mise-en-scene, editing and sound. The camera shots that the director used built up horror and suspense throughout from the long steadycam tracks to the clever use of framing that kept us on our toes most of the time, the mise en scene also played a big part in the films’ success the very strong acting from the figure and somewhat mediocre work of the girl both blended well to make the whole thing realistic, the use of lighting also made everything seem eerie as the whole film was very low lit to deem menacing in the eyes of the audience, and the sliced wrist special effect, which I think made the whole thing very menacing as it left a feeling of disarray in the viewers minds. There wasn’t a lot of editing done in this film, in a sense, there wasn’t a lot of quick cuts to show tension and thrill which contradicts the stereotypical way to induce tension, but it worked, the long shots which was all creatively framed made the whole short better, because the beauty of this short is the simplicity of the edit and it’s plot and it clearly showed. And the last but not the least thing, the sound, there was a lot of ambiance used, a loads of sound effects and not a lot of musical scores, this I think worked well because the terrifying bits of the short didn’t need a sound/song accompanying it as the camera and light connotes the mood of the film anyway. To sum up the whole film was successful because of all the technical codes, from the cleverly framed shots, the superb (and not so superb) acting, the low lit set and the simple plot, these are what made “Love Hurts” great and an unexpected gem in the short film world.
