Svarta Madam

'THE MADAME IN BLACK': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

The new horror short film from multiple award winning Swedish filmmaker Jarno Lee Vinsencius. This one is a 23-minute supernatural thriller, dealing with an urban legend known as the Madame in Black. The short once again stars Demis Tzivis (who stars in all of Vinsencius's recent work), and it costars Ida Gyllensten, Jennica Landen and Ellinor Rosander. Vinsencius also once again wrote, directed, produced, edited and filmed the movie (like he does all of his films). I think this short is equally as good as his earlier award winning work, if not better.

The story revolves around an urban legend known as the Madame in Black (Rosander); a witch that appears and haunts people, after they say it's name three times. Two siblings, Alex (Tzivis) and Emma (Gyllensten), played a popular game when they were kids, where they called the witch. Alex thinks she did appear, and he's been haunted by her ever since. The brother and sister decide (foolishly) to play the game once again, as adults, and the Madame in Black returns to haunt them.

The movie has a pretty simple premise, that's reminiscent of a lot of other popular supernatural thrillers, but this one is really well made. The cinematography is always beautiful to watch, the acting is all more than adequate (especially Tzivis, once again), and the scares are really effective (and frightening). Vinsencius never shows the viewer too much either, which I think makes the film that much scarier. He really has a talent for making strange, dark, and sometimes frightening movies (like this). I think it's another impressive entry for his resume, and I can't wait for his upcoming feature film 'EVIL RISING'!

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I make IMDb page to write review. Very cool to see this film. I like horror films and this was correct made. The emotion, the scary, the madame in black was cool killer.

The actors did good work. I also very happy to see Harry who artist Kase Chlopecki acts. I like to see more of him. I wait for Evil Rising a long time and hope soon to see it.

The director make good work also.

I will start this off by saying that the pacing of the opening to this film was particularly well done, with the exception of one very early jump-scare scene which, in my opinion, broke immersion. Other than that; the music, the slow-moving camera angles and the gritty filter worked in unison to create a very good setup for the film.

From thereon it's sort of a roller-coaster mix of good, mediocre and bad. This is an independent production, and as far as independent productions goes, this is well done. I will give credit most of all to the ambiance, the color setting, the music and the use of camera angles and movements. The acting can be incredibly campy. Some lines are delivered with such strange timing and tone. And the film itself pretty much makes use of every trick and cliché in the big book of horror film history.

Does that make it a bad film though? Of course not. I think that this movie is, if anything, self-aware of how clichéd it is. It contains everything we've gotten to know and learn and either love or hate from older horror films. In short: this is a homage. A harmless flirt with the classics. And I don't find anything wrong with that.

And one can tell that both the actors and the creator(s) of this film had fun making this idea a reality. And that's something they should definitely be proud of. I will give it a well-earned 7/10 for keeping me entertained throughout the whole feature. If you have about 25 minutes you can spare in your daily life, I would totally recommend this one.

This movie was a nice little gem.

Personally i think a lot of short-films fall flat because of a shitty story line - this DOES NOT!

I really enjoyed it.... a lot of story in a short amount of time, but done in a very professional way. i looks great, sounds amazing and the acting is very natural!

The story itself is seen before, let's be honest, but anyway i would love to see a longer movie over the same story - OF the same director/writer.

I will most definitely seek out the previous work of Jarno Lee Vinsencious.

BRAVO JARNO!!!!!

The short is based on an urban legend present in many cultures (e.g. Bloody Mary and Candy man). In Sweden it's "Svarta madam" (Black madam). The concept is that when a person looks into a mirror and repeats her name three times she might appear. I played this game myself during my childhood which heightened the experience of this movie.

The script is carried out in a great way and the photo, ambiance and sound are also great. Someone complained about the ambiance being to much of a horror flick. Would this have been a full length movie I might have agreed. However, in a short, you don't have as much time to pull the viewer in and hence I think the constant horror ambiance worked well.

I hope to see more from this director!