2AM: The Smiling Man
2AM is a short film about a night walker encountering a stranger night walker while roaming the streets. At a little over 4 minutes there isn’t a lot of time for nonsense, and, wisely, the film makers don’t do that. It helps that this flick is based on a really short story.
It’s a very ambiguous piece, and that’s one of its strengths. With one possible exception there are no silly bits of rule breaking to spoil the fun. The acting is spot on as is the direction.
It is what it is: a creepy short. Great job (2.0). I really like this one (1.5)
3.5 out of 4
This is Not a Test
This is Not a Test is a short film about a young man confined to his apartment due to some sort of paranormal anomaly happening in his country. It’s run time is a little longer that 2AM and it, too, uses its time wisely. I don’t think it’s quite as successful as our previous subject. It doesn’t hit its notes quite as well, and while the actors here aren’t bad, they don’t have the… I dunno… reality maybe? Somethings off about the performance, is what I’m saying. It could be just me, but it was there.
Outside of that criticism, the only thing I’ll say is that it’s a tad predictable. It’s good (1.5) and I liked it (1.5), but it could have been better.
But that’s just me. Both films can be found on YouTube.
3 out of 4 points
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While both films were good, I felt that “The Smiling Man” was far better. It had an exceptionally good use of music and the ending was actually creepier. With “This is Not a Test”, the ending was ambiguous (it might have been an alien looking for help). But in “The Smiling Man:, you knew that nothing good was going to come of that.
It helps that 2AM feels like a professional movie, while This is Not a Test feels like a very good student film.