Taylor seeks to hide his sins in hopes that they will go unnoticed and become no more than a dirty little secret…

I will break my own rules with one of the first featured films on FilmShortage.com by featuring a short longer than 30 minutes. Indeed that is a pretty long short film, so why feature? I am a huge fan of Ryan Connolly and his online shows; Film Riot and Film State. His DIY film techniques and tips can be very useful to any new or even experienced filmmakers. Besides being a fan, I believe he just raised the standards for short films with ‘Tell’.

This short has everything a suspense/horror full-length feature film has packed into an half hour . The photography throughout the movie is just as tense as the storyline, the angles and editing are perfectly sliced to each intense build up. I like the hand-held camera feeling always having the ‘3rd’ person creepy presence in the room, but find the (on purpose) shakiness a little overwhelming for the entire length of the movie.

The story line is a little basic for a 32 minute film, but is very well written and the constant suspense makes up for it greatly right up to the very last second (love the last shot). To add to the suspense is just an absolute taunting soundtrack composed by Daniel James, that can compete with any of the best Hollywood horror movie scores. The original soundtrack for Tell is available on iTunes.

Even great films will have their little flaws. Although I understand the intent to drag on the suspense, I still believe the film could of worked just as well if it were about 20 minutes long. The acting is good in general, but since the rest of the film is of epic quality, the girlfriend Jenny’s fight with Taylor was a little less than convincing. But she does come back with a bang!

One of the greater things about the film is that it was very public and has several Film Riot episodes dedicated to the ‘how-to’s’ and ‘making of’s’ that can be very useful to other filmmakers.

Overall Ryan Connolly and his team did an outstanding job on this much anticipated short film, I am sure nobody went up their attic after watching this. A must watch, grab your popcorn, shut the lights, sit back and enjoy!