[Director] Gary Teperman's semi horror short relies on the central premise that a surprise, depending on the circumstances, can be either the greatest moment of your life or the worst day of your life. Take Ken who after a night of partying awakens in a small warehouse where he's met by his best friend Dave who promises a really big surprise by the end of New Year's Eve. While I am always one for giving experimental short films a chance, unfortunately "Surprise" was one of the short films I'd hoped would be of great quality.

Teperman knows visuals and special effects, but the film itself falls short of bringing us anything mind blowing. Instead we're treated to a lot of exchanges between both of the characters in their small confined space and are greeted by grotesque images most of whom seem pretty gratuitous when compared to another piece of conservative film that would have been just as aggressive in getting the point across. I wanted to enjoy "Surprise" but I just couldn't and that's because the movie never really seems to know how its handling the plot and it drifts off to some bad voice altering and two characters that are never three dimensional as the script would want us to believe. In the end it's thirteen minutes that should have and could been rendered of greater significance and complexity but just fails at possessing definition and depth.