Laboratory Conditions

This film is so spooky that it begs the question, "is this real?"

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!

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.

Left me wanting more, I wanted to see further into the story and what happens. It peeked my interest, it felt real, the actors played excellent and the idea itself was new and original as well as the way it was displayed.

I saw people who were kind, who were selfish and who were in between as well as the idea of supernatural and death. These elements combined, where the selfish person forced the hand of the gifted one peeked my interest in wanting to see the continuation of the entire situation as well as the backtories.

But somehow in this short video, a lot of questions were answered about what drives and motivates each person. I was able to root and feel like I knew these people while watching the entire video for such a short period of time. The ability of the actors to say and express so much even without saying is to be admired.

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.