Short Film Review - Taxi (2012 - Dir. Arianjie Az, Nadia Yuliani)

It's strange how I get to hear about films. I'd written a feature for our sister site into the valley of the obscure about some quality acoustic numbers that I'd found for free on Last.fm. One of the songs included is by Sundae Sunday and very pleasant it is too. By some odd coincidence it turns out that the singer had co-drected a short horror film. And here it is...

The first thing that hit me is how professional it looks. It must have had a small budget and yet it looks good visually and the music adds greatly to the atmosphere. This would be a good start to a full feature.

It was pretty obvious that she wasn't going to be as defenceless as we'd been led to believe but questions arise as to why she got a little bit eccentric and ate those naughty men. I like to think that the fellow on the motorbike had something to do with it. The fact that we don't see his face raises further questions: is he even human? I can imagine the story continuing with motorbike man as an anti-hero, causing all manner of mayhem.

My only problem is the second death that left me feeling cheated. The first contains blood and, more importantly, guts. It all feels pretty savage. The second death meanwhile is relatively bloodless, consisting of close-ups and zooms, with no visible participation by our heroine. Where it should have topped what had come before, (maybe with a severe head twist?) it all seemed like a bit of a comedown.

But I'm being picky. This is a well-made short that shows that the filmmakers should be let loose on a feature film. 
7/10
(This rating is based on other short films I've seen - it would be a tad unfair to rate it against full feature films.)

evlkeith