I don’t really enjoy Short films, or at least rarely. I may academically respect and appreciate them, but dont usually enjoy the experience. Many are not very good. They rarely have time to settle into themselves. They feature subject matters I don’t feel do well in short format, and save for a few exceptions the are not often visually intriguing. When they are, its it's a case of style over substance. With all that being said I watched two short films I actually enjoyed in the past few months, not just with my mind, but with my heart. One I can’t speak on just yet , (but watch out for Tayler Montague.) the other is Nikyatu Jusu’s “Suicide by Night.” A refreshing, imaginative, take on vampirism, that embraces the outsiderness, and paradoxical mortal rejection of blood at the core of vampirism through a lens of blackness, and womanhood. The result is a stylish, gory, sexy, inventive, profound short film. A film that funnels the darkness of parasitical behavior through a lens of socio- political angst that bends the light toward the darkness without ever losing its shadow. The shadow is the inherent parasitical nature of vampirism, the light shined in is from the vantage point that connects it to survival in a cruel world. It’s a perspective that lends itself to many of the fables and negative imagery that surrounds marginalized people, or even the way we feel about certain animals (snakes instantly come to mind) where revisionist history and anecdotal stereotypes paint survival instincts and defense mechanisms against predators as unprovoked violence .
