From Omeleto.
An editor gets disturbing footage.
DEATH OF AN EDITOR is used with permission from Kyle Hartford. Learn more at https://kylehartford.com.
Ella is a video editor who works from home, due to her reclusiveness and inertia. Despite the entreaties from her mother and friends, she often is reluctant to leave home, where she holes up inside, working and existing.
But when Ella receives footage of her demise, her home becomes the site of terror and dread as she’s harassed by the fearsome "client" who sent her the video. As the footage becomes more disturbing, Ella must soon come face-to-face with the entity haunting her and face her fears.
Directed and written by Kyle Hartford, this vivid and visceral horror short builds up an intriguing premise into an effectively chilling experience, as one woman baldly confronts the possibility of her life being extinguished in an inhumane way via a force she doesn’t understand. Ella has been merely existing for some time, staying inside and living her life via screens, calls and takeout. But when she receives disturbing footage, she suddenly realizes how valuable being alive is.
The storytelling doesn’t delve too deeply into the intricacies of Ella’s psychology; actor Clare Lefebure’s sympathetic, precise performance does much of the heavy lifting in terms of filling in the blanks of a numb, overwhelmed and passive personality. Instead, the film’s alienated visuals create a spine-tingling evocation of dread, deftly building intrigue, suspense and tension in a briskly-paced narrative that slows down enough in key moments to saturate us in an atmosphere of sinister import.
In contrast to the film’s drained, mutedly naturalistic cinematography, Ella’s footage is full of unsettling, ghastly images that sear into the imagination in a way that J-horror fans will enjoy. They hint at something supernatural at work, an unholy combination of the technological and demonic. And when Ella faces down that force, the entity — as well as Ella’s ultimate fate — is as weird and horrifying as promised, and even scarier in its inscrutability.
With the film’s uncanny images, effective storytelling and its darkly spooky specter, viewers can extrapolate more symbolic meanings and metaphors about technology, existence and what it means to live. But ultimately DEATH OF AN EDITOR leaves viewers with a skin-crawlingly unsettling feeling at its end. It’s a feeling that will itch in the empty moments after viewing, and linger because it refuses to explain itself fully — not unlike death itself.
