The Elaborate End of Robert Ebb

The basic virtue - all is familiar. From the B - movies rubbery monster to the drive - in and violent reaction of community , inspired by news. The good point - the end . Dramatic, sentimental and useful for a simple, good crafted short film inspiring nostalgia.

I have been watching Doctor Who from the original series recently and just the other day watched the serial with the rubbery Silurians as the creatures. It felt very dated and rubbery although still worked but it was a nice coincidence that shortly afterwards I watched this film which gives a rather fun spin on the b-movie creature feature. Security guard Robert is at work and bored when he dresses in a big rubbery monster costume he finds. Scaring his colleague witless, he has a good chuckle but finds he cannot get himself out of the costume. Venturing out of the movie studio he finds a community less than willing to help him out.

The joke may well be a simple one but it is still a good one – although if you are in a less charitable mood then you do have to concede that the film only goes where you know it will from the moment Robert puts on the outfit. The manner of doing it is funny though and the sight of him trapped inside the costume bellowing in frustration is never not funny. The narrative arch requires coincidence and chance, however this to me was part of the joke since even the title concedes it is "elaborate" in nature. The design of the short helps a lot; it is a French film but done with English people and made to feel like the US of the 1950's, so the diner, the drive-in and other such things are nicely recreated. The monster outfit itself is really impressive as a thing – convincing as the sort of thing you would see in such a b-movie and yet still comical.

It may well only be one joke and it may well be a fairly obvious one, but it's how ya tell them and this short tells it very well.