Short of the Day
Slasher meets ugly sweaters with festive results. If you’re the slasher.
This time of year people like to open their hearts and their homes to friends and family and share in the tidings of the holiday season. However, if there’s one such gathering I think we can all agree has run its course, it’s the Ugly-Christmas-Sweater party. Besides being a waste of money for the sake of wasting money at a time of year where we already waste a lot of money, the fact that these parties have become so ubiquitous there are retailers who now specialize in making ugly sweaters just to booster the “tradition” takes all the charm, effort, and reward out of it. What used to be the culmination of a scavenger hunt for tackiness is now just an ironic way for hipsters to stay involved in a holiday whose roots they most likely don’t believe in anyway.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those guys who stands on a soapbox during December ranting about the secularization of Christmas – I’m no Christian – but I am one of those guys who thinks if it doesn’t belong to you, you shouldn’t trivialize it. Therefore, you better believe I enjoyed the ho-ho-hell out of Do You See What I See?, a horror-themed holiday short from directors Justin McConnell and Serena Whitney that follows two sisters, Sloan (Caleigh Le Grand) and Jessica (Jorja Cadence), who are hosting a holiday gathering of the sort I described that takes a turns for the worse(?) when a masked crasher (Elliot Dawson-Clark) starts picking off partygoers.
In a world that has, for my money, far too few Xmas-themed horror features, Do You See What I See? – besides having the perfect title for such a film – could absolutely be elongated into a bigger film. It’s youth-driven and claustrophobic like the best horror films are, the direction from McConnell and Whitney is spot-on voyeuristic and intimate, and composer Sean Motley (who’s done a lot of work for Honest Trailers ) has concocted an atmospheric score John Carpenter would be proud to call his own. Fortunately, according to the press release a feature is in development, so jump on the bandwagon before it pulls away by pressing play below; Christmas Spirit optional.