It’s getting to where whenever director Patrick Rea or anyone from Senoreality releases a new short from their company, we’re ecstatic to see what they have in store for us, because there’s always a guaranteed surprise in store whether we enjoy the film or not. Patrick Rea’s “Paint Shaker” is not a horror film as it is an examination on life and a dark comedy based around monotony propelling in to all out chaos thanks to a misunderstanding and a manipulative co-worker. “Paint Shaker” is very much in the vein of films where there’s always seething rage and aggression boiling underneath our characters where they’re doomed to burst at any second and such is never made more apparent than in “Paint Shaker.”
Rea conducts a morbid film about a simple humdrum minimum wage worker who does nothing but shake cans of paint all day at his local design shop indulging in an existence that revolves around complaining. But his boredom is destroyed when a disgruntled co-worker, just fired a few days before, comes in to the shop one day bearing a fully load shot gun and wreaks havoc on a few shop attendants and the boss. Of course twisting the conventions of what would otherwise be a melodrama, writers Jon Niccum and Jai Nitz turn “Paint Shaker” in to a completely dark comedy in which our shlub Thompson is so incensed by the insanity taking place before his eyes, he can do nothing but try to talk his way out of this situation as he learns how to get on the good side of this employee who begins striking down his ex co-workers while learning some things about the circumstances of his unemployment.
This sends his anger skyrocketing as Thompson looks on offering solutions to his massacre avoiding the obvious answer that’s right in front of him. “Paint Shaker” is not so much about a tragedy as it is about the boiling anger of the local minimum wage worker and the people who will do anything to live another day, even if it means having to go back to their crummy jobs to shake paint cans until the next powder keg explodes before their very eyes. “Paint Shaker” is a demented little look at the average man gone postal and it’s another slick title in Rea and Senoreality’s filmography. A departure from Patrick Rea’s usual dive in to the horror genre, “Paint Shaker” is a sick little short look at normal life disrupted by a massacre, and a man who will do anything to get out of it just to get out of work.