By Simon Thompson
Director / co-writer Orin Black’s The Babysitter Murders Timings Off is an excellent short horror film that leaves you on the edge of your seat for the entirety of its eight minute length. It takes real storytelling skill from a writer to give away the ending immediately and still have you engaged, but Orin Black and Gus Riley’s script shows just that.
Grace (Elliot Francis Flynn) , a babysitter is watching the news until she comes across the report of her own murder. Understandably disturbed and confused at the same time, she begins to experience time and reality distortions as she fights to stop the inevitable from happening.
In a nutshell, this movie could be described tonally as half giallo and half Donnie Darko. Black and Riley’s script does a wonderful job of marrying the visceral thrill and frantic pacing of a slasher movie, with the contemplative and cerebral tone of most great science fiction and not coming across as tonally dissonant. Shot at night, the movie’s visuals hook you in right from the start, especially during the intro sequence where Black contrasts the flicker of the TV light with the darkness of the interior living room and the outside.
Elliot Francis Flynn is well cast in the leading role, displaying a sense of likeability and courage that makes the audience instantly root for her attempt to fight her way out of her predicament. When she has to act without dialogue, her performance really shines due to the expressiveness of her face, which, when coupled with Black’s intelligent use of close up, says more than an endless stream of dialogue ever could.
If you’re looking for a short, sharp, shock fix of horror then I can’t recommend this short enough, however, what sets it apart from the rest of the pack is the way it plays with time – which if you lean more towards science fiction than you do horror, still gives you plenty to enjoy and mull over long after the credits have rolled.
Bloody Flicks 