{"id":26436,"date":"2017-09-26T22:32:15","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T02:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=26436"},"modified":"2017-09-26T21:21:29","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T01:21:29","slug":"sandman-2017-horrible-imaginings-film-festival-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/sandman-2017-horrible-imaginings-film-festival-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandman (2017) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2017]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A woman wakes up in the middle of the night and as she tries to push away a nightmare, she finds something much worse lurking in the dark.<\/p>\n

This short by Liam Banks is one truly creepy one that uses a story from most people\u2019s childhood and cranks it to eleven. The way the creepy thing is introduced is great and how it comes closer and closer to the lead is chilling. This short takes something most people were raised into being scared of and uses it against the lead which creates an effect on the viewer. This short uses simple methods to bring the creepiness forth and make it powerful.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The leads here are played by Esmee Matthews who gives great scared lady vibes and a fantastic performance as the audience\u2019s surrogate in the situation. Playing against her and scaring her is Matthew Barker who gives one of those creepy, crawly, skin-crawling performance and just works with the simple character he has, yet makes him complex with how he carries himself. This works for the film and for this viewer as the creepiness he oozes works its way through the film and through to the bone while watching him work.<\/p>\n

The film here has very little special effects, except for some well used visual effects. The CGI here is perfectly used and looks just right in the scenes where it is used. The fact that it is not overused helps it be more effective. The rest of the film uses visual cues like darkness and light used to create effects of fear and invasion. This works as a team with the cinematography by Jonathan Butler who uses the darkness and the enclosed spaces to great effect to add to the tension and dread of the film.<\/p>\n

The film looks great with this cinematography and those visual effects. On a side note, please stop sending women to bed with a full face of make-up. Ladies nowadays know better and remove all make-up before bed. The make-up used should not be noticeable as it is an annoyance to a few (or many) female viewers as it is not something most women would do, go to bed with make-up on. That being said, it\u2019s a small hiccups in an otherwise really creepy short film gem.<\/p>\n

Small issue aside, Sandman is an effective, creepy short that crawls under the skin and makes the hair raise up to attention. The story is simple, yet works great. The acting is on point and the fear-bringer works in its simplicity. This is yet another short that proves tried and true stories as well as simplicity are usually the creepiest ones to use for a strong effect and the most bang for the buck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A woman wakes up in the middle of the night and as she tries to push away a nightmare, she finds something much worse lurking in the dark. This short by Liam Banks is one truly creepy one that uses a story from most people\u2019s childhood and cranks it to eleven. The way the creepy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[367,477,501,938,1087],"class_list":["post-26436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-foreign","tag-horror","tag-indie-film","tag-short-film","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26437,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26436\/revisions\/26437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}