Gleam

Director - Sean Carmichael (The Last Seven Years)
Starring - Sean Carmichael, Kati Salowsky (Cheerleaders vs. Redneck Zombies), and Alexander Gauthier (Dead Bounty)
Release Date - 2013
Genre - Horror
Format - Streaming (Online Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     I usually get extremely excited when I am asked to check out a short I had never seen before.  Shorts have the potential to be extremely powerful and not waste the viewers time.  I have seen several fascinating and amazing shorts during my time at Horror Society.  A few months ago I was sent a short film to review from Horror Society friend David Langill.  I checked it out and really enjoyed the short.  He soon sent me another film to check out but work got the best of me and I completely forgot to check it out.  One day I was going through my Facebook messages when I realized he had sent me the short Gleam to review.  Sorry about that David but here is my review.

     The short follows a young couple that visit a local jewelry shop to get the perfect ring.  They speak to the well cut and groomed jeweler and give him the order for their ring.  They leave and the jeweler goes to his basement with a shipment and we discover that he enjoys torturing beautiful young women before killing them and burning their bodies in a bath tub.

      Some shorts really surprise you with what they are capable of doing in such a short period of time.  Gleam really did throw me for a loop and it was not what I was expecting at all.  The film starts with a perfect cookie-cutter scenario that slowly turns into a dark and twisted little short.  The acting in this one is solid by the entire cast.  The cast is pretty small consisting of just four people.  Only three of the four has actual dialogue and they all did an outstanding, knockout job.  The story for this one is one that I did not see coming but looking back I feel like an idiot for not seeing it.  The film opens like a perfectly shot film that turns dark and gritty.  This was solid for a short but it left me wanting to know more about the jeweler and why he commits these heinous acts.  Finally, the film does not have any on screen kills and gore which is a bit of a let down to considering the story we do get.  More gore and kills would have been fun.  Overall, Gleam is a fun short that switches gears pretty fast and turns a perfect world upside down.  It lacks the bloodshed needed to make the film believable but it is still a fun watch.  Check it out when you can.