A woman discovers her parents dress like 'foxes'.
OTHERKIN is used with permission from Dawson Taylor. Learn more at dawsontaylor.org.
Scarlet is heading out to a remote home on an isolated island. She's visiting her birth parents, Ike and Janine, from whom she's been estranged since she was put up for adoption as a child. She's hoping to forge a connection with them and recover some missing pieces of her identity.
The house is old and a little strange, but her birth parents seem happy to have Scarlet back in her life, welcoming her warmly. But when she uncovers the truth about her parents and the circumstances of her adoption, she realizes some things are better left unknown.
Directed and written by Dawson Taylor, this horror short is a classic "chills and thrills" tale about family secrets and obsessions, and one young woman's attempt to escape their entrapment. Beautifully crafted, vividly told and anchored by a sympathetic performance by actor Georgina Campbell as Scarlet, the narrative has a sense of classicism, both in its stately, elegant yet lurid visuals and its sure-handed storytelling, which builds up an atmosphere of sinister portent and then lets loose with a pulse-pounding climax.
The film telegraphs its unease early on, with cutaways to strange pictures in the art on the walls of the imposing house and flourishes in the musical score that feels delicately spine-chilling. Yet Ike and Janine's joy at their reunion with Scarlet is believable, and actors John Higgins and Trenita Lindsay play the parents with a fine balance between enthusiasm and loopy eccentricity.
For a few moments after dinner, there's an inching towards heartwarming understanding and empathy, especially as Janine relays the parents' feeling of being outsiders for their way of living. There's a possibility she could be referring to Ike and Janine's interracial marriage at first. But as the conversation continues, it's clear that Janine means something else entirely -- something much odder and more ominous. And when Scarlet is stranded at the house overnight, she discovers in an unfortunately visceral way just how different her parents are.
There's no blood or gore in OTHERKIN and in many ways, the film has a nostalgic, even old-fashioned quality that makes it widely appealing, especially in a genre full of outlandish special effects or gruesome shocks. But it nevertheless achieves its nightmarish quality by evoking something more psychological and perhaps universal: the fear of becoming our parents. When childhood has become a nightmare, we hope to leave behind its trauma and fear, but the film literalizes the metaphor of being unable to escape dark familial legacies, which keep us mired and stuck. There could be more to Scarlet's story -- and certainly, there's plenty in the film's intriguing mythos to expand upon in a feature. But in the end, many will know exactly how Scarlet feels, imprisoned in the dysfunction of a family she can't escape from.