The Hidebehind

The wood. A backpacker with a wounded leg. An apparition, almost monk, almost ghost. And the run, tension and predictable end. Familiar is the easy definition but it is not another version of the so familiar dark forest. For the details, from the performance of Robin Collins and the significance of trees to the Celtic mithology reference and the yellow hat. A beautiful crafted short horror.

Hidebehind is a fascinating nocturnal creature from American folklore that preys upon humans that wander the woods. When someone attempts to look directly at it, the creature hides behind an object or the observer and therefore cannot be directly seen...therefore its ability to conceal itself creates some intriguingly playful, yet creepy encounters. This only 10 minute short from Parker Finn interestingly captures those attributes and made me wonder why there aren't more horror films made about this creature yet! This is a good enough monster that deserves some attention & love from the genre filmmakers & the studios.

Plot

Lost deep in the forest, a lone backpacker encounters a peculiar stranger.

Cast

Really only 2 people, one is never truly seen and the creator is unknown to me.

Verdict

You know the main problem with horror these days? It's not scary, at all. They try what with the likes of Conjuring/Insidious/Annabelle stuff but it's as scary as Christian folk music which though disturbing isn't going to send anyone running for the door.

The wonderful thing short horror has is opportunity, with it's limited run time it has the chance to be more impactful and every once in a while you're presented with a short that utilizes that opportunity and delivers something truly chilling.

Based on a creature from American folklore the "Hidebehind" is a creature that lurks within the woods and though larger than the trees it hides behind still manages to be unseen, even being able to reach out it's arm seemingly from nowhere. This made for a decidedly creepy setting and they knocked it out of the park despite the minimal assets available to them.

It builds up the tension, it makes you feel uneasy and slowly lures you to the gut wrenching finale.

This is how you do horror and I'm suitably impressed, more please!

Rants

See I often say that short film makers like this should be given funds to make feature movies, however that's a different ball game altogether. Short films are their own genre for a reason and I question whether these people would maintain their magic moving from shorts to full length features. Would the Hidebehind even work as a 90+ minute movie? Potentially? Absolutely but it would also be considerably harder to manage. Regardless I'd like to see it, the movie that is not the creature. There's a reason when I go walking in spooky forests I wear my brown trousers.

The Good

• Genuinely scary
• Highly original
• Perfectly paced

The Bad

• Leaves you wanting more (In a bad way)

A man who is exhausted, dehydrated and hopelessly lost in deep woodland sees a strange cloaked figure with their back to him, that he at first assumes to be another person until he grows annoyed and chases the rude 'person' who darts and almost scuttles away in an eerie and unnatural fashion every time he gets close to it, and as he keeps chasing the mysterious figure into the endless trees he never suspects that he's being led by something malevolent to his very doom!!! I really liked this short a lot, I thought the concept was pretty spooky and cool, and the awesomely sneaky monster was totally new to me, I'd never heard of a "Hidebehind" before, but what a creepy creature, something that plays with and confuses you by seemingly disappearing and reappearing at will, and that you can't directly look upon until it wants you to and by then it's already too late for you as it's right next to you before you can react! In this short it's namely the trees that it impossibly creeps around but I could see how that could work well with practically anything, and what I loved about this short is that it has an effective lost in the Woods atmosphere and tone and look to it, you can easily see how the earliest loggers thought of such a spectre while being surrounded for months on end by the endless dark unknown of the woods of which they knew very little about what at the time, and of the many creatures those rugged tale-tellers thought of the Hidebehind is surely one of the scariest! I thought the actor was fine but I loved the way the performer who played the creature shuffled around and moved in a way that was almost like floating, and when you finally saw it I loved it's malicious goblin-like face, very cool effect as well as a great kicker to end the short with. I think it was a practical effect too, always love to see that being done so well. I loved some of the visual trickery like when it would impossibly disappear behind a very thin tree, and when it got the man at the end and he was looking around the tree he was resting against and then around the other side, and the camera panned all the way around it and there was nothing there but then the monster was there just waiting for him to notice it, I'm sure there must have been some kind of transition in the shot but it looked pretty seamless to me. Very good short I love the ones like this, well worth a wee look, and for god's sake beware the dark woods! X

It's already terrifying the thought of being lost deep in a forest, that's one of the reasons why I always avoid going deeper in forests but add to that being injured? And add to that coming (almost) face to face with a mysterious supernatural entity? That's an absolute nightmare, I would feel completely helpless and scared. I think that the way this creature was able to perfectly hide itself even behind the smallest trees was a really smart idea, I don't remember seeing something like that before. I think the ending was very good. My guess is that after the last scene the backpacker gets brutally murdered or consumed by this creature. The design of the creature is really simple but smart and effective. Robin Collins (the backpacker) does a great job portraying the character. Just like Parker Finn's ''Laura Hasn't Slept'' this has a creepy and atmospheric horror vibe which I really like. Overall I think this short film is really solid (and creepy). My rating is 8/10.