A man witnesses a shocking crime. In exchange for his life, he promises to never tell anyone what he saw. But can he keep his word?
Keeping your word should be a very simple thing to do. But for some people, it just doesn’t come so easy. Filmmaker Dan Roe, explores these unforgivable territories in ‘Keep Your Mouth Shut’: a funny, yet gruesomely dark short film. A film that will teach you a valuable lesson.
As long as you keep your mouth shut, don’t ever tell anyone what happened, ever…I’ll let you live.
Leading up to making this short, I had been really focused on writing features, and was becoming more and more restless with the development process. It takes so much time, and I wanted to get back to making things, not just making the document that might get used to maybe one day make the thing. After one of the features I’d been working on for a very long time fell apart, rather than sulking, I went home and wrote the first draft of Keep Your Mouth Shut and decided to make it myself however I could. Luckily, things came together pretty quickly, and a few months later I was on set shooting a Christmas murder comedy in southern California in July with a full crew and a great cast.
Without breaking any cinematic grounds, ‘Keep Your Mouth Shut’ thrives on execution and deliveries. The well crafted subtle moments and progression is driven my human nature’s uncontrollable urges. Simple urges that end up developing into embellishment and lies. And just like that, Dan created a Christmas flick about morality.