Laboratory Conditions

This short was masterfully written, produced, and acted. Marisa Tomei and Minnie Driver excel portraying scientists on opposite sides of the science versus spirituality spectrum. Don't watch this at home alone at night!

To lend this vapid outing a degree of gravitas, the producers decided to add a British scientist Halloway (Driver) and a nerd with oversize spectacles and baggy cardigan (Costanzo), who took a break from flipping burgers. Despite Holloway's lapidary pronouncement that "Nature does not know extinction, only transformation," none of the actors, Tomei included, show much conviction, perhaps they have their mortgages in mind while digesting an avocado toast. This foray is corny beyond belief. Back in 1972 the BBC broadcast a TV thriller "The Stone Tape," in black-and-white, cardboards sets, available online (DailyMotion): watch it, and compare with this dross.

Absolutely superb!

If like me the preconditioning of being a guy in 2022 makes you consider stopping after the first guy opens his mouth, I'm begging you, please don't!

This is NOT that kind of film. The characters are all believable, encompassing good/bad, with/without faith, strong/weak with those attributes assigned without an agenda, some skillfully revealed over time.

It's without question one of the best videos - short, long and all points between - I have ever watched, bar none.

I've seen a lot of comments on YT wishing it was a full length feature and I can see their point, I'd certainly watch a director's cut if it added even one scene.

Or a sequel - it could easily go in a couple of directions - but honestly, on its own it is wonderfully, thought provokingly complete.

Full marks!

A not comfortable idea but a very old curiosity . The duel between familiar actors. A small detail defining the end. And something returning us to old questions, doubts and sources of fascination, faith and old lectures.

In short, the discover, out of doubts, of soul.

A stolen patient, a doctor looking for him, an experiment and the images saw only by the doctor. And the cold truth , changing everything, reminding the angry of God against Egyptians in the time of Moses.

Many reasons to define it as a film with Minnie Driver, Marisa Tomei and Paulo Constanzo. And , maybe, this is the motif of provocative subject, less original but powerful at whole.

A great short film for the fine manner to craft questions . Maybe, for the basic truth, discovered by each viewer as a precious remind about life. And death.

Saw this at the Napa Valley Film Festival... what a gem! Performances, production design and overall production value rivals that of most feature-films. It's no surprise that the script was written by Terry Rossio (Shrek, Men In Black, Aladdin) as it achieves in 15 mins what most full-length horrors can't muster in 90+ mins: genuine tension, a payoff that doesn't feel forced and a general feeling that you don't know what's going to happen next throughout. It's a testament to the short-film format when star writers and directors make genre shorts, because it shows that the medium isn't just for experimentation - sometimes it's for great ideas that are born to be told quickly and efficiently. Also a big shoutout to the production team on this one who clearly worked their socks off to bring this to fruition, especially wrangling the schedules of two star actors in Marisa Tomei and Minnie Driver (both fantastic) and a team of super talented people behind the camera. Definitely one of the best and highest-quality short-films I've ever seen. Catch it if you can!