After a deadly virus is unleashed upon the world, a lonely man contemplates ending his life in Philip Brocklehurst’s short film The Virus.
For the past few years, Philip Brocklehurst has been one of the most active filmmakers featured on Screen Critix. He has created numerous short films with little-to-no budgets and help from just a few individuals making up the crew. Whilst they aren’t as polished as many of the other short films we review, he does have a tendency to make us think long after the end credits roll.
The Virus is no different. Yes, it is (very) rough, but an idea is there, and you can’t help but smile at witnessing someone successfully creating a short film whilst managing the serious limitations that were presented to them.
Through some opening exposition in the form of titles; we learn that World War 3 has taken place and a deadly biological virus was unleashed, killing millions, if not billions of people around the globe. The film opens up with a shot of a man lying in his bed, completely naked. As the man turns over, we are told of his loneliness via a voice-over. Fed up with being confined to his home with no one to keep him company, the man walks to the window and decides to let the virus in, resulting in an end to his life and the nightmare that has become of it.
That is basically the whole film, which comes in at just under five minutes in length, which came as no surprise to us, as Brocklehurst has consistently made short films at around the same length for as long as we have reviewed them.
With the whole film being set in the confines of one, rather small bedroom, it is had to sell the fact that humanity is dying and that a deadly virus is lurking outside. It left me with more questions, like what did the man do for food? Even with little or even no budget, Brocklehurst could have made the short film feel much grander in scale if we saw the protagonist wandering a deserted exterior, like an early morning car park or a field, whilst wearing some makeshift hazmat suit made from everyday materials you find around the house. That could have been done for little money and would have certainly added to the film.
One of the issues that I had with the film was the lack of lighting. A Brad Fletcher is credited as the cinematographer on the film, but there was no use of lighting throughout and the imagery captured was too dark in places and noisy. At one point, the man gets out of bed and walks to his small window, passing a lamp as he does so. It would have made such a difference if that practical was turned on, especially if they didn’t have any film lights available to use.
Still, these niggles can hopefully be addressed in one of Brocklehurst’s future shorts. According to IMDB, the filmmaker has now over seventy short films on his resume and we hope he continues to create and do his thing. As aforementioned, he does have the knack of making you think, one can only imagine what he could come up with if a little more time was spent on the visuals to go along with his scripts.