Short Film Review: "Jack's Bad Day"

Perhaps the toughest thing about a short film, and the most intimidating to first-time directors, is the need to tell a complete story and develop characters in a very limited amount of time. Much has to be left to innuendo, context clues and clever pacing, and the audience is left to fill in the gaps themselves. For this very reason, I prefer short films (and short stories, for that matter) to full-length works in most circumstances, and the debut clip from director/writer Shawn Ewert, "Jack's Bad Day", is a great example of how to do it right.

The short focuses on Jack, a prolific serial killer who has been terrorizing his neighborhood and leaving corpses in his wake for weeks prior to the film's opening scene. Jack is your everyday guy, someone you wouldn't look twice at. The hilarious comedic timing of actor Steven Good lends a lot to this role, which is written (as is the entire film) with minimal dialogue. Good's performance is solid, and he hits his mark every time; whether it's distress over his morning shower going ice-cold without warning or huffing and puffing as he descends twenty flights of stairs, you are snickering or outright laughing with each expression on his face and inflection of his voice.

We've all had days like our poor Jack, unfortunately; the day when you burn the toast, lose your keys, and mismatch your socks all before even leaving the house. Jack decides that killing a girl will put him in a better mood, but the Murphy's law theme of the film indicates that no, this is not in the cards; not one but three botched murder attempts later leave him a very discouraged man indeed.

One of the funniest background performances comes from Jayson Champion, a tall fellow who looks like he just wandered out of a heavy metal concert. Jayson is portraying a character billed only as 'Scruffy Man', who lurks in the peripheral of several key scenes before the twist ending reveals his true purpose in the short. Jayson only has a bite-sized portion of dialogue, delivered in the last few seconds of the film, but his facial expressions and body language make finding out his role even more funny. Likewise, cameos from local genre legend Abel Berry as a weatherman and the director's husband Jeff Hamielec in a split-second cameo as a drunken lout are like spotting the silhouette of Hitchcock; it's an inside joke that rings true with people familiar with the director and his circle of friends.

The film is not flawless; the lighting is fairly mediocre and at times the sound has a hollow, echo effect from subpar audio equipment. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall product. A soundtrack score by Guthrie Lowe truly adds a professional dimension to the short, and the pacing of the script is clever and funny. The scenes are concise, and while some of them cut a little TOO quickly, none of the gags are milked so long that they outlive their welcome. The film's length makes it a convenient little watch, and the DVD layout is pleasantly sprinkled with special features like outtakes, a behind-the-scenes stills gallery, and a snippet of film involving a toaster that is entirely funnier than it should be.

'Jack's Bad Day' is a funny, quirky little ride done with very little time and money and overall, it delivers. For a first effort, this fun short film shows immense potential of bigger and better things to come from Ewert's Right Left Turn Productions, and fans of humor and horror will do well to keep their eyes and ears peeled for future projects from this promising filmmaker.