Needing a new place to live after breaking up with her boyfriend, Laura finds her two new roommates to be a little on the crazy side in Tender Lies.
Here we have the debut short film by Veekrant Raj, a director who is learning the craft of film-making whilst creating, which in all honesty, is the best way to learn. Tender Lies is a short horror that lasts for a little over seven minutes, but it manages to pack quite a bit into those minutes and, for the viewer, those seven minutes fly by.
Laura (Joana Malta) has recently broken up with her boyfriend, and it seems it was a bad break-up seeing that she has changed his name to “Piece Of Shit” on her phone when he tries to call. She drives from the city, where she lived, to a small town after seeing an ad for a roommate in the classifieds. When she arrives at the house, she is greeted by two young women named Sarah and Rose (played by Jessica Ureste and Laura Medes respectively). They instantly make her an alcoholic drink and enquire as to why she has moved to their town, especially as the town has a bad reputation due to it being the home of notorious cannibal John Norman Parker. The girls then begin to tease Laura, before apologising and suggesting they let their hair down by partying through the night inside the house. This is where things take a real turn for the worst, with the girls turning on Laura to gruesome effect.
Tender Lies is a decent little short, especially seeing as it is a debut film, but Raj does make some decisions that are questionable. It seems that the short was shot with a fast shutter speed, which makes it look a little like the storming of the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. Now, I wouldn’t really have a problem with this, especially if it was used during action scenes, but here it was used throughout when the character was simply walking from the car to a door, or through a backyard.
As well as the shutter speed, sometimes the framing was a little off, as was the depth of field, with approaching characters being completely out of focus when there was little need for it. I also found the blocking to be humorous, but not in a good way. This is most evident in the killing scene when the victim just decides to lie down on plastic sheeting, allowing the killer to mount and stab them. There was no falling, there was no fight back. Wait until you see the reveal of the mastermind villain in the end scene, which is played so over-the-top you’d be mistaken for thinking you were watching a pantomime. And his laugh? Oh my.
What I did enjoy was the lore of the story. A young woman finding herself amidst a pair of crazies. The legend of an infamous cannibal who may or may not be real. That all works really well. Raj is learning, and if he concentrates on what works, and what doesn’t work, we can’t help but believe that he will go from strength to strength. We will be looking forward to seeing what he does next.
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