Give Me Something Good - Review

It has become abundantly clear that technology has its drawbacks. Our society has fundamentally changed based on the introduction of social media. While a lot of symptoms of social media are arguably negative, it has also pushed the access to technology forward massively, which has allowed more creative people to create, and I like that. Without that access, we would not have gotten Give Me Something Good. This lengthy short film comes from writer-director Clay Moffatt, who has some solid ideas in here, and a crew around them that clearly are dedicated to the craft.

Lucy (Samantha Santillanes) is falling behind on her schoolwork, but instead of helping her friend out, Harper (Serenity Starr Foreman) tells Lucy to sack off that boring schoolwork and throw a Halloween party. The goal of the party is of course to prove to Lucy that local hottie Colt (Jonathan Michaels) is like totally into her. The thorn in the party’s side is Lucy’s older brother, Austin (Stephen Kessen). He hides in his room, drinking and shouting at a horror film, until he thinks up a better plan. Austin breaks up the spin-the-bottle game to introduce a Ouija board into the mix. The attendees flippantly call out to the demons of the underworld, where they get a response. Lucy falls victim to a violent possession, locking her friends in the house where they can only run for so long.

This is a fun film. An inoffensive way to spend 40 minutes of your time. There is a charm in the creation of it, even if it feels low budget in presentation. The lighting has a classic “party” coloured LEDs sprinkled around, with a confusing choice of music. The party is planned and started over a track that I can only imagine the Xenomorph mediates to. A couple of lines of dialogue separates that song and a quintessential corporate slideshow song. Although instead of watching a company boast about their dedication to a carbon-neutral approach, I am watching young adults play pool in a nice suburban household. The music choices to start the film work well, giving it a retro feel, coupled with the imagery of a library, that transitions well into the opening of the story.

The story opens with a bizarre bullying scene that never comes back around, and feels a little unnecessary. The actor playing the bully also wasn’t born to play a bully, I could see through that facade, I know they are the nicest person on set. The story continues to have elements that don’t really have much motivation behind them. The reason for the party makes sense, along with the brother bringing the Ouija board, but the tension between Lucy and Colt is nonexistent, and solved very quickly. The possession also happens very quickly, descending the rest of the film into a chase that is a little tedious, even in the short runtime.

With one or two adjustments to the story, I think this could have been great. There is a lot of lead up to the inciting incident of the film that doesn’t feel necessary. The energy of the film takes a while to build which gives more context than you need in a short. It works as a proof of concept as a feature, showing you that there is more to the characters than just expendable lines of dialogue. It just could have used some finesse if the opening details felt needed for this version of the story.

I appreciate the credits at the end of the film, they take the time to give everyone who worked on it their name in lights, cut in between some bloopers and behind the scenes clips. These are welcome additions to the film to make me look back on it with appreciation. The crew all felt dedicated to the shoot, the cast were going all out and enjoying their time on set. If making films is not about that, then why do we even bother?

Give Me Something Good is available to watch for free on YouTube