After Hours

David: Hello and welcome to DoubleFeaturePreachers.com. I’m really glad you’re joining us today. Today we have a short horror thriller (our favorite) to discuss, submitted courtesy of Writer/Producer Adam Weber. The short is called “After Hours” and stars Bill Oberst Jr. (of Heir) and Gabriel Lee. Here’s a link to the IMDB. I first wanted to say thank you to Adam for sending the film in. Continue to send them in guys, we support independent film! Shannon, would you like to get us started talking about your initial thoughts on “After Hours”?

Shannon: The beginning of the film was great. It was thrilling and able to put the viewer on the edge of the seat wondering what is going to happen to the employee in that store. After this, the film takes a turn and follows the lead detective on the case. Being such a short film, it’s typically hard to build suspense in such a short 

amount of time, but I feel like After Hours does an excellent job making you think and wonder who the person was in the store with the employee. David, what were your initial thoughts on this film?

David: Overall, I really enjoyed it. There were parts that may have been a bit too slow for my taste, but as you stated, overall I think the point was to build suspense, and that was accomplished. I really liked how the film gave us a cold open, much like the movie Lights Out (actually the themes are really, really similar in the opening scenes). We are just allowed to wonder what’s happening, and then Adam Weber paints a picture of something that it could possibly be. It’s good that he gives us that, because without the pointed comparisons to the stalker, I think the film would have suffered. We would have been left blowing in the wind, trying to figure too much out on our owns.

I really enjoyed the actress who opened up the film (Dana Mauro I believe). I thought that she was tremendous in regards to her performance within the warehouse. I also liked the lighting here quite a bit, because it accents her performance. Only downside was when they found her, I was entirely convinced by the blood. I’m used to outstanding creature effects, and so the blood seemed a bit, well, thin to me. I’m nitpicking, obviously, but I wanted to bring it up. What’s criticism if you say there’s nothing wrong?

What did you think of the effects and acting Shannon?

Shannon: I wouldn’t say that the effects really stood out to me. The beginning was my favorite part (the ending too I guess), and I didn’t really know why. But now that you mention the lighting and effects here, that is most likely the best reason. I totally agree with you that it was very similar to Lights Out and that Dana did an excellent job opening up the film. What did you think about the other acting? Most importantly Bill? I remember him being amazing in Heir when we watched and reviewed that, and I think he is doing a good job here too. Truly wanting to know what happened to the poor girl. Yes, the parts where he is doing his investigating are fairly slow, but that doesn’t deter from his acting don’t you think?

David:  Bill has such a unique face, which gives him a distinct acting style and flavor. You tend to associate him with certain things happening, which is why he has popped up in quite a few horror things. What I find rather interesting is that he is cast as the detective, and does a great job with it. I really enjoyed him in this role because he fell back on something we’ve all heard: Keep It Simple Stupid. He didn’t overact his part, but he just allowed it all to happen. In truth, as we have both stated, this led to some slower portions of the film. But had it been too focused on making it interesting, we would have seen the ending coming.

Speaking of the ending, I’m going to issue a “spoiler alert” here after the break, so if you don’t want to have it spoiled, you don’t have to read it. Ready? Let’s ride.

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I absolutely didn’t see that coming. I was expecting something to happen to poor Bill, but not that. I think having it be a mannequin at the end was a terrific bit of misdirection. At no point are we shown something that would make us think that, and I’m giving credit to all involved here. Bravo.

Shannon, did you like the ending?

Shannon: I am a little on the fence with the ending. On one hand, I thought it was very clever to make it a human killing mannequin as the villain in this movie. On the other hand, it was just extremely weird. I am glad that I didn’t see it coming though, like you said that is no indication that an mannequin was the one who killed the store employee. It was such a surprise that I couldn’t help but think “Oh my God did they really just pull that out of their hats?” With that being said, I think I jumped the fence into liking the ending. It was such a big twist, how can I not?

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I don’t think there is much else I have to say on this short film. Is there anything else you would like to touch on for After Hours, David?

David: Nope. I’m going to give After Hours a “B+”. I would love to see the story expanded further *hint hint Adam*. Shannon, what are you grading the film?

Shannon: I think this short film is going to get a “Liked It” rating from me! Thank you for the opportunity to watch and review this, Adam, we really enjoyed it!

David: Thanks for taking the time to check us out today, to both our established readers, and our new ones. Please continue to send in suggestions, tell your friends, and support independent film!