Review #21: Witch's Spring (2004) - Short film

Witch's Spring is an independent five-minute short film from the United Kingdom. Despite being rather short, only having two actors, and recorded in just 24 hours, I found this rather memorable.

Source: IMDb

Length: 5 minutes

Number of Ratings from IMDb: 22

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Director: Brian Barnes [Witch's Spring, LovecraCked! The Movie, The Urge]

A man's inner monologue ponders why people find internet dating to be so risky. He reveals that he's been in contact with a girl for some time, and she wants to meet. Believing that no man's "ever died of a broken heart," he agrees to see her.

The girl, Rhiannon, seems rather nice, though something is off about her. When they get to her house (going down streets that the guy, despite living his whole life in London, has never seen before), she admits that she's a Pagan. This doesn't bother him much, probably due to the fact that Rhiannon is simply stunning.

Well, perhaps not so much when she's holding a knife.

He seems interested in Paganism, and both of them make playful quibs back and forth to each other, though he seems to be slowing becoming more worrisome of the situation.

After a little time, she offers him some of her "Witch's brew", to which he jokingly asks if it's a love potion. She acknowledges it sort of is, as he takes a sip and instantly his vision goes blurry. When he wakes up, he may realize that perhaps internet dating is not as harmless as he formerly believed.

Witch's Spring was written, shot, and edited in 24 hours, for the 24 Hour Film Challenge 2004, which from what I can tell, was a short film challenge in the United Kingdom. It was shown in various festivals, including Cardiff Screen Festival, Brighton Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, and The Wood Green International Festival of Shorts.

As one may be able to guess, it was quite well received, and that reason is not terribly difficult to spot. The acting is perfectly solid, and story is decent, and Gillian MacGregor (the actress who played Rhiannon) is very attractive. The only problem I had with this short is a pretty bad special effects use near the end of the short. That aside, this was very solid.

As far as horror shorts go, this was a fun watch - it took itself seriously, but not too seriously, and never got too boring (which, believe it or not, can happen in short films). Quite a good watch, and I'd recommend it.

My rating: 8.5/10

IMDb page

- Michael