12 Kilometers

First off, the marketing was amazing. I am not big on short films but this was perfect. No fluff. Lite backstory...really wild. Usually a movie is 50% Bs and this jumped right into it. The visuals were crazy. The fact that is was in subtitles and the character sounded and spoke a foreign Eastern Block language....it gave me the feel that it was some backwoods griming Russian basement which was very wild. The filmmaker sucked me right in and I couldn't wait to see what the heck was going on. Not only that but the way you had to search and hear from the filmmaker to watch the movie was really cool. I feel like I am invested. I really enjoyed it.

I loved the visual effects and the color palate of the film with the sound effects all together put me in the mood of 80's classic creepy movie vibes. The main idea of the story is original and related to geo-physics scientific project so I was curious through out the whole movie. I like that kind of scary movies which are about natural and scientific projects. It represents the daily thoughtful minds of us. Asking questions like what would happen if we tried to discover what is beyond our reach or what if there are other forms of life deep down the earth. As a human being is wondering and searching for answers of all the questions regarding our universe and the earth we live on.

First thanks to Mike for the password to watch this. I did enjoy this short , but I wanted some additional understanding of what's happening or something to provide some closure to the end of the film. The ending seemed more abrupt than I expected. By the time there seemed to be some introduction to the dark presence from the deep, then it just ends and goes to credits.

The atmosphere and acting were all great and I can't wait to see more from this director. I just felt like this was more like the opening 20+ minutes of a show or movie than a short film. If a full feature of this premise came out I would definitely watch that!!!!

Ok it might not be up to the standards of a "normal" horror movie which plays at your instinctual fear like a jump scare or some gory sequences. But Mike here is playing at something else. The fear of being a disappointment, claustrophobia, anxiety and failure. What I mean by that is, if you took a 12 year old for instance and showed him/her this movie, they would make a remark along the lines of "I've seen worse" or "too short". On the other hand if we took another person with a pretty decent life experience.. they would be recalled of some of the worse things in they've went through, at least that was the case with me. It might not be something that'll keep me up at night but as the title said it did make my skin crawl for the 26 minutes of screen time. Mike does a really good job of keeping one's eyes on the screen here.

This short is a true work of art. It's a fresh, original idea sprung from great influences. I had watched the trailers and seen the promos for this but it doesn't prepare you, unlike most modern movies that give it all away in 2 minutes. From the start this one gets under your skin, you're thown into a plot you just want to know more about. The score is fantastic, achieving it's goal at providing tension and unease. Performances are top notch, from snarky to conniving to emotional, it's all there. True professionals made this one, and it deserves a full length release. I can't wait.