Every once in a while you stumble on that one film that reignites the spark for your love of filmmaking. This short really did that for me.
‘The Madame in Black’ (‘Svarta Madam’ in Sweden) is a Swedish horror short directed, written and produced by Jarno Lee Vinsencius who also did the cinematography. I think that doing all of those jobs, and doing them WELL is such an accomplishment. The story is simple enough. Similar to Bloody Mary here in America, the Madame in Black is one of those games that kids do to scare each other before they go to bed. Only this one might actually be real? The cast also gives great performances, with no one out of place.
The part that I really want to praise for this movie is the cinematography. The look of this movie is so eerie and murky that it really makes you feel like you are watching someone’s nightmare. There are also some really beautiful wide shots and tracking shots that I really enjoyed.
A very minor complaint is that while the majority of this movie is scary in the atmosphere and story telling, there were a few attempted jump scares that didn’t have quite the right timing to actually make me pee my pants. I can only think of 2 times when they didn’t work on me. Then the end comes, and I haven’t been that surprised by a scare in a long time. In a really good way.
Please support smaller films such as this one and help keep indie filmmakers doing what they love.
9/10
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