STALK

STALK is a short film that follows Ben/Stalk (Brian Ramien), a homeless man as he invades the home of his sister (Kelly Quinn) to confront their shared, tortuous past and provide hope for a better future. Brian is perhaps the strongest actor amongst a group of other great performances, but the film is really given life (when he’s on screen) that would have otherwise bored.

The film unfortunately gets off to a rather jarring start. The introduction of Ben is quite brief and nice, but falls short by an abrupt edit that causes it to feel extremely out of place compared to the rest of the film. The score can also be a bit overpowering at times as well. Coming in and out very abruptly from scene to scene when it's utilized, it draws a bit too much un-welcomed attention to itself.

Now while I appreciated the message this was trying to share, the execution could have still been a bit better. The moment where Ben chooses to introduce himself as Stalk and address his purpose in life feels very out of left field within the context of the scene and what we'd come to understand before. I found the third act to be the most enjoyable part of the film, and both performances by Ben (Ramien) and Hope (Baylee Ruehle) to be quite moving. It's just unfortunate that it doesn't feel quite as earned as it should have had the first and second acts set things up better.

The cinematography was also a bit hit or miss. The color is often not matched well from one shot to the next causing most of the cuts to feel out of place. Additionally, the characters' eyelines are so bizarre with the majority of the close-ups positioning the characters looking DIRECTLY into the camera. I didn't fully grasp the reasoning behind this choice and it did take me out of the story a bit further. But again, art is subjective and I do respect the attempt at trying something different.

Essentially, my main issue with Stalk is that it lacks presentation, thus causing some great performances and an intriguing story to fall short. But all in all, I still enjoyed this. Although it could definitely use some tightened pacing, it didn't overstay its welcome and kept me engaged. Other than a few great performances, there’s not a lot here to make it particularly noteworthy as is, but I'd love to see this re-worked and expanded upon. Particularly the siblings' pasts and what's led them to this moment. But for first-time director, Thomas Prill, this certainly gets his career off to a fine start. Hopefully we’ll get to see bigger and better things from him in the future.

5/10
- Dante Aubain