Review of Bedfellows

A very nice short for what it is, the idea is certainly a scary one and clever in how it's set up, plays out, and pays off in such a brief span of time. You think your significant other is sleeping next to you in the bed but then your phone rings, and it's from them - like f**k!!! What the hell would you do next? There's either freeze in terror, confront the stranger or run like your ass was on fire! For me? Think I might wanna try out the running! And of course beyond how frightening the idea alone is the fear factor is also helped out a lot by the fact that what's eagerly waiting beside her is some kind of hideous bone-white ghoul which leers in excitement as she slowly reaches over to uncover it... And then it ends on one totally unnecessary jumpscare that the director Drew Daywalt always feels the need to wrap things up with at the last second. I can't decide if the scare would have worked better if the woman would have turned it over and seen that horrific face smiling right at her, or how it does end with her about to find out and staying in the anticipation of that.. And that sure is a great face on the monster, pretty excellent makeup job they did on it, that's something else I've noticed with with several of Daywalt's horror short films, the monsters in them always look really effective and scary. Unfortunately something else about them is that they're often so short and to the point that there's not enough development for me to really love them that much, not enough 'meat' to the bone so to speak. I do love the guy's knack though of being able to hold one long shot for a fairly long period of time and create a solid amount suspense without any boredom, he creates a genuine unsettling creepiness in such short running times. I wonder if he could actually translate that into a full movie if he had the opportunity.. That's something you hear again and again in the comments for these things, talking about how awesome it would be as a movie. But I think that's a little short sighted, this kind of straightforward building up of tension to the one big scare moment from beginning to end ideally works best as a short, it wouldn't be the same as anything else. It's a good spooky flash of short though, it's suspenseful and it plays out very well very fast. Good scary crazy stuff for when you're in horror mode!