Many directors think that in order to lure in audiences, they have to have a pay off that reveals their menacing villain in their film. Whether it’s a short or a feature length film, they’re not often concerned with leaving things up to the imagination. The fact that “88:88” was filmed around a very small budget with only two set pieces, benefits the overall creative work to display a film and a premise that’s both terrifying and awe inspiring. Thankfully “88:88” doesn’t crowd the film with a lot of dialogue, nor does it need to explain everything that’s happened.
All we know from the messages played on character Val’s machine is that she’s been in therapy, and her boyfriend has completely been cut out of her life. She’s become reclusive and doesn’t seem to mind it much. The day we meet Val, she’s returned home with a massive home repair kit and begins installing some of the most interesting pulleys and wires around her house. Reinforced locks, she’s added chains to the bed, doors are barricaded, and as an added touch she’s secured herself to her bed with two powerful straps. What occurs in “88:88” is mind blowing when it finally strikes out protagonist Val and thanks to very little shown and only some elements of our antagonists revealed in short glimpses.
Val’s dilemma is made abundantly clear to the audience, and we can only imagine what horrors are awaiting her if she is taken out of the womb of her home and drawn out in to the blinding white light outside her bedroom window. Supported with booming sound effects, and a wonderful score by Make Up and Vanity Set, “88:88” is a simple and absolutely brilliant horror film that makes use of what it has and in the end delivers one hell of a richly established genre entry. If you ever come across “88:88” online or at a festival, be sure to give it a chance as it may shock and surprise you as it did me. The film is the work of folks who know how to take very little and turn it in to something incredible and I commend them.