Heir (Short)
Four years after Fatal Pictures stunned me with their short film, “Familiar,” they have returned with their latest effort, “Heir.” It didn’t have the immediate impact on me that “Familiar” did, although it was another example of strong, unsettling atmosphere, creepy makeup and impending terror playing right into a twisted family story, and the sacrifices people make for their family.
When we first meet Gordon (Robert Nolan), he is working on cropping his wife out of pictures with their son, Paul (Mateo D’Avino), and sending them to someone via email. We then see Gordon and Paul driving to meet Dennis (Bill Oberst Jr.), an old friend of Gordon’s from college. Immediately, we feel something a bit off about Dennis, but we get the feeling something is not quite right with Gordon, either; we have seen that he has a wound in his hand spewing puss. When they get back to Dennis’s house, though, we really get the sense that something is wrong here.
Ambiguity can be a good thing in a film, and especially in a horror film, but “Heir” leaves things too ambiguous at times. This film has many of the same qualities that made “Familiar” a great horror film, regardless of length, but it also leaves much to interpretation, and that is not necessarily a good thing, in this case. The performances are quite good, writer-director Richard Powell has a strong sense of mood, and the make up effects are terrifically creepy, but the film didn’t quite rattle me the way his previous effort did. Instead, it left me feeling some pieces were missing.
