Tags:
Film: Agatha
Year: 2016
Director: Timothy Vandenberg
Writer: Timothy Vandenberg
Starring: Louise Ogle, Penny Kohut and Jessica Farmer
Review:
This film begins with a young woman entering a house; she is played by Louise Ogle. She meets with a woman, who is played by Penny Kohut. Kohut asks if she was followed and Ogle assures her that she was not. Kohut is offering her a job to take a plate of food up to the attic. She is told to not go past the serving table though. When she goes upstairs, we see a table with a picture on it. There is a picture of a mother and her child, but there is something not right with the face of the child.
Ogle goes into the room and there is something in the bed. We don’t get a good look at what it is; this thing is played by Jessica Farmer. It moves and we see that it is chained. It has been chained for a long time, as we see by the ankle the chain is connected to have been rubbed raw. Ogle is nervous about what she sees, but she puts the plate down and flees. We then see that she is given a few coins.
We then see her as she continuously comes back, every night, bringing different plates of meat to the room and receiving payment for what she does. We see that every time that she does come into the room, she seems more and more curious about the thing in the room. The problem though, the thing in the room is just as interested in the girl bringing it food.
What will happen? Will Ogle figure out the thing she is bringing food to? Or will something much more sinister happen?
I have to say that I had the pleasure of watching this short film when the writer and director Timothy Vandenberg reached out to me asking if I would be willing to watch and review this film. I am glad that he did. I really enjoyed this short. The acting in this film is mostly done by facial expression, but Ogle did great with it. She showed enough fear in the beginning and her curiosity seemed to grow. I believed her performance and was impressed by her performance. It also helped draw me into wanting to know about the creature in the attic. Farmer also was great. She looked quite creepy when you finally see her face, which I will also give credit to the make-up and special FX done. Farmer also did some interesting body movements, which helped to make her performance scarier. I also enjoyed the ending and the final image as well.
Now the only drawback I had to this was that I wanted more. I would have liked to know more about Farmer, what is wrong with her and what is she? I do think that this film has the potential to be stretched out into a feature length film, which I believe is something that could be explored and I am all for. I would really like to see what Vandenberg could do fleshing this story out more and exploring the truth of what’s in the attic.
With that said, I would recommend seeing this short film if you get the opportunity. The film looks great. The acting is solid, which I don’t always expect from children actresses. I really like the range that Ogle shows with her facial expressions, which is difficult to do for some adults. I thought the creature looked good. The make-up, special FX and the setting were all well done as well. This one left me wanting more, which for a short like this I think is good. I would definitely give this short film a viewing.
My Rating: 8 out of 10