From Omeleto.
A man fishes alone.
KEEPERS is used with permission from Nite4Nite Productions. Learn more at https://bio.site/nite4nite.
A struggling fisherman is working at sea by himself. He hauls aboard one of his traps and discovers something amazing — something that is an impossible gift from the sea. It’s a miracle and for the fisherman, it could likely solve many of his problems.
The fisherman continues to fish, each time bringing up some new bounty. But soon, catching more becomes an obsession, emerging out of greed and a growing curiosity. Who is giving him such riches? The fisherman will do almost anything to find out, even if it means risking it all.
Directed by Paul Emile from a script written by Eric Stumpf, this mysterious horror short is a compact but vivid exploration of obsession, greed, and the fragility of the human mind as it becomes ever more unmoored from reality. The sea — vast, unknowable and full of mysterious depths — has always been a fertile backdrop for storytelling, especially narratives that explore the unknown and inhuman. This short takes advantage of the gnawing expanses of open water to isolate and intensify its protagonist’s growing obsession with what’s below the surface, feeling both intimate and even metaphysical as time and reality feel increasingly unreal.
The maritime premise is simple enough, and the visual storytelling itself is equally pared down, its visual minimalism working in tandem with an eerie score and sound design to evoke something subtly otherworldly. The fisherman gets a brief but evocative sketch, just enough for us to understand just what wondrous and intriguing his latest catch is. But curiosity soon transforms into fixation, and the catch becomes less a lifeline than a lure into a troubled mind’s growing darkness as it untethers itself from reality.
As the lone fisherman, actor Luke Slattery has pretty much no dialogue to work with, but he evokes the journey of a man excited at the miraculous solution he’s been given, only for his curiosity to become vulnerable to temptation. As he sets his traps again and again, we as viewers can start to question what is real and what isn’t, especially as the visuals and sound design beautifully capture the haunting, strange atmosphere of being alone at sea. Winds howl, the boat creaks, chains rattle: we feel the solitude as much as the fisherman. The setting is isolated, precarious and increasingly uncanny, especially as each catch becomes teasingly surreal — and starts to feel less like a gift and more like a curse.
Meditative, atmospheric and building to a taut, suspenseful tension, KEEPERS leaves viewers with more questions than answers, but its mysterious nature is fitting for a narrative about a mind whose edges have begun to fray. But for viewers who favor atmosphere, symbolism, and psychological tension, the film offers a deeply satisfying descent, one whose enigmas and riddles tingle in the veins after watching. As the fisherman discovers, the sea takes what it will, merciless and vast, reminding us that some mysteries are better left beneath the surface.
