Foxes

The cinematography is excellent, the acting, gothic quality is solid. The film is jam-packed with very telling details, but the ending is bad for me, but the options were probably limited given the direction of the story. Certainly worth watching.

I didn't know anything about FOXES apart from a brief synopsis and concluded it was simply a tale about a long term relationship hitting the rocks . That is in effect what the story is all about , emotional isolation between a couple that is rapidly and irrevocably widening . There does seem to be a clash between screenwriter Garret Shanley and director Lorcan Finnegan and how they envisage the theme . Mr Finnegan seems to think a story of isolation is a bit too simplistic so he does something unexpected and creates a short film that is almost an apocalyptic horror movie . None of this should be taken as a negative criticism . We all know what it's like to become emotionally attached to someone and when we lose that person it is effectively the end of the universe . It's something of an achievement to the director and is very well done and brings more atmospheric gloom to a short film than say WORLD WAR Z and I AM LEGEND which cost tens of millions of dollars . Perhaps the best aspect is the rhythmically amorphous music which leads to a suffocatingly oppressive atmosphere . The director had me on the edge of my seat wondering if something full blown horror movie territory was about to happen . You might ask why the director felt the need to go down this stylistic road but it's so well done it'd be wrong to complain and does lead to a short film having a massive impact and I'd love to see this director do a 28 DAYS LATER type horror movie mixing horror and human drama

Where and how I have lived for the past decade has been mostly the influence of my partner but in this way it has been a positive thing as she generally hates places without character such as new builds and estates like this. I mention this because having been on some of them in the past I can relate to the reality of being somewhere so empty, where the inside of your house is pretty much the place to be. That is the setting for this short film but more extreme since the couple are not only on such an estate, but it is also one that was built on a hope that never came, so buyers never came and the housing market collapsed so now the couple find themselves the only people on their estate but with no chance to sell their property, recover their money or get other options.

The trapped hopelessness of this will speak to those of us in the middle classes, since property and negative equity seems to speak to aspirations, risk and fear. Here we have a woman cut off from so much that when she makes even a fleeting connection to a group of urban foxes, she is energized by it to the point of frenzy. Although the narrative takes a horror route, it never loses touch with the base meaning and it is this double thread that makes the film work well. The oppressive shrieking adds a (literal) voice to the feeling of being trapped and, although it does eventually take a leap into far fantasy, it continues to work.

Finnegan's direction makes the most of the emptiness of the estate and the lives, with a very drab and hollow sense to the view. Ruane leads the small cast well, managing to convince in her character whether she is numbed, excited or lost – it is a tough performance to sell but she manages it. Generally Foxes works well as the base subject matter is familiar and the development into more horror territory doesn't lose touch with that base.

'Foxes (2011)' is most successful when it comes to its atmosphere. The short drama-horror focuses on a woman who seems to be drawn to the foxes that hunt through her bins at night, to the increasing detriment of her already unsatisfying home life. It's a well-shot and well-edited affair with a professional aesthetic and, as I mentioned, a strong sense of atmosphere. Its narrative is a bit basic, though, and its payoff isn't as strong as it perhaps needed to be. Plus, its ambiguity feels less like a purposeful decision and more like the result of an uninspired scripting session. Nevertheless, this is a solidly entertaining short film. It's good, just not great. 6/10.

There is an awful lot going on in these 16 minutes. The cinematography is excellent, the acting solid, and the Gothic quality . . . well done. The film is jam-packed with very telling details . . . the husband's badge pinned to his dull workday uniform, the foxes at the garbage, the marks on the woman's body, the bits of landscape framing the row houses. The housing community is beyond monotonous--it's downright menacing in its straight-jacket sameness. There's an intensity that compels you to keep watching. The ending is a bit hokey for me, but the options were probably limited given the direction of the story. Certainly worth watching.