I’ve forgotten the name of an undead trick or two after an adventurous night on the town. Unlucky Peyton, the title character in Spencer Parson’s incisively graphic short film Bite Radius, one up’s me, though. His evening debauchery results in a dead body in the bathtub.
Thankfully (or not), Peyton’s friend Nicole has a twisted idea of how to deal with Kelsey, the unfortunate lass who breathed her last behind the shower curtains of her career girl apartment. This involves a machete, a hand saw, fire and lots and lots of blood flying around. Naturally, this all ends a bit badly for everyone involved.
Here director Parsons, best known for 2013’s truly enjoyable (and highly recommended) Saturday Morning Mystery (AKA Saturday Morning Massacre) completely catches how this Age of Kardashian effects certain twenty-something’s with either Peyton’s numbed self indulgence or Nicole’s media thrill seeking. It is fine work that shows he is capable of many colors as a director not just the fun throwback vibe of SMM.
He is complemented, fully, by his go for broke cast. One of Chicago’s most inventive and enthusiastic stage performers, Trevor Dawkins brings a charming otherness that draws audiences to Peyton despite his misdeeds. Sophie Traub, meanwhile, supplies an infectious energy that tempers Nicole’s ingratiating madness with a childlike mystique.
Nicely, in a genre that exploits the female form above all else, almost the entire cast here, with Dawkins and Traub leading the charge, revels in the naked abandon of their aggressively careless characters, bringing this piece a gritty reality and honest equilibrium all at once.
Bite Radius is showing this weekend at the Maryland Film Fest
http://www.md-filmfest.com/festival/film-schedule/300
and will, also, be showing at CUFF on May 16th in Chicago
https://m.facebook.com/events/976318255714642.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Big Gay Horror Fan 