9 Jul 2012

Deid ★★★★☆



Review of 'Deid' which can be found here at Daily Motion.

Length: 16:08
Written & directed by Bruce Taylor
Genre: Comedy
Date: 2011
Rating: ★★★

Logline: A young student believes that his new elderly neighbour harbours dark desires towards him. And he'd be right. She does.

This short is pretty rough around the edges but I couldn't help but like it. Shot on a shoestring budget, the camera work and visuals lack quite a bit but the over zealous heavily regional acting more than makes up for it.

Yvonne Morton plays Moira, the larger than life Aberdonian, and gives a cracking performance in the process. The dialect unashamedly rolls off the tongue as she delivers her rambling banter. It is Morton's acting more than anything else that makes this an enjoyable watch. Although her dialogue is stronger and richer than victim Jonathan's, played by Mark McCrone, the two characters together provide a good contrast and Jonathan's dialogue shouldn't be thought as lesser because of this. The young new student and the traditional old woman make for an effective couple on screen and the one-sided miscommunication works well although is completely obvious. The comedy is relatively funny but had there been a greater emphasis on hiding the incredibly inevitable conclusion, the humour could have had a greater impact.

there are many flaws, most of which are forgivable. Lighting is terrible, as is set design. Yet the more important factor of sound has at least been done to an acceptable quality. Sound effects are cheesy but help create atmosphere. The absence of a soundtrack was a good choice and when music finally makes an appearance in the last scene, it has more of an impact because of this. Camera quality is okay but shot composition isn't always great which is probably due to the size of the locations used. Length-wise, this is way too long. Moira's explanation speech at the end for example tends to waffle and loses impact. The edit has done well considering the shot footage there was to work with.

The concept relies heavily on setups and payoffs (always a good thing) and this helps structure and flow. Overall, let's not forget it's a student film and it is what it is. By no means perfect but shows promise in dialogue, character design and has some nice film influences working away in the background.


Best Bit: Moira.

Worst Bit: The undisguised student flat.

Final thought: A candle lit dinner for twa.

Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.

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