Horror In Short: Contact
Contact (2010)
Directed By: Jeremiah Kipp
Cast: Zoe Daelman Chianda, Robb Leigh Davis, Katherine O’Sullivan, Danny Lopes & Alan Rowe Kelly
Review By: Annie Riordan
A story – whether it’s the printed word or the cinematic adaptation – should make you feel something. Even if it’s not what the fiilmmakers originally intended, a well told story should always contain something with which you can personally identify. At least that’s my pseudo-snobby theory. The more personally I can identify with a tale retold, and the more painful and uncomfortable that identification is, the more impressed I’ll be. I like it when books and movies, hell – even paintings, reach inside of me and jar some half-forgotten memory loose, especially when it’s a memory that I don’t want and have spent years (with the assistance of gallons of alcohol, prescription meds and group therapy) trying to erase.
In the case of Contact, the 10 minute short film by Jeremiah Kipp, it’s a memory of a bright sunny day back in 1987, when I foolishly accepted a smoldering roach from a carload of guys I didn’t know very well. The chemical smell did not alert me, nor did the bitter off-taste raise any red flags until it was far too late. Two days later I woke, sore from vomiting, but thankfully in my own bedroom, wondering what the fuck had happened. That was my first, last and only encounter with Angel Dust.
In his moody, black and white nightmare, Kipp relates a similar story: girl loves boy, boy brings girl to seedy hangout to buy drugs, girl has worst trip ever in the history of mind-altering experiences. But that’s just the tip of the drug-laced iceberg, believe me.
How much more can there possibly be to a ten minute film, you may well ask? Plenty. There’s body horror the likes of which Cronenberg would be proud.There is sex and flesh on full display, and an accompanying eroticism so stark that it’s heartbreaking. Over it all is spread a suffocating layer of sorrow, loss and regret that physically hurts to experience, reminding that the pain we cause others can never be taken back once inflicted. Realizing and accepting how much damage you’ve done is a scar that never fades, and being unable to forget is like ripping that scab back open and digging around in it with a blunt blade, making it bigger and worse and more noticeable.
Viewing Contact was a deeply unsettling and disturbing experience for me, which is exactly why I’m giving it a good review and recommending it: anyone who can cram that much harrowing emotion and complex detail into a ten minute timespan has my full admiration. And Contact had my full attention, from frame one, right up until the fade to black.
You can view Contact by Clicking Here
