From writer, producer and director Ben Ogunbiyi comes the delicious short film, Meat Free. The concept for the film came from Ogunbiyi’s fears of jumping back into the online dating game, specifically the mix of excitement and anxiousness one experiences when meeting up with a stranger for the first time. Ogunbiyi explains that:
“I wanted to explore that fear of rejection in the most absurd of situations.”
The film follows a fun-filled evening of carnal indulgence followed by a shared moment of enjoyable afterglow between our leads, Jean (Jasmine Sumner) and Duncan (Jacob Meadows). This afterglow is short-lived as some sinister intentions by one party suddenly become violently apparent and our seemingly pleasant evening of fine dining and fornication switches to one of life or death, with some terribly cruel intentions coming to light.
The film is pretty standard fare when it comes to what to expect from a typical horror short film. I’ve seen similar films before in the past, some more shocking and some less. Meat Free manages to find a pretty good balance between humour and horror and stands apart from most of its peers due to the simple fact that it’s impeccably well made. The attention to the smallest of details, the finely crafted editing, the believable acting, and the well-shot scenes all culminate into a pleasurable viewing experience; it’s a ton of fun.
The opening music is almost whimsical in nature and the dialogue is very tongue in cheek, especially when one considers which tongue and which cheek. On a second viewing, we can see some forewarning shots that I absolutely missed the first time around, which made me appreciate the careful construction of each scene of this micro-short film. The phallic symbolism is also a lot more prominent in the second viewing. This is an absolutely tasty treat of a film and it will be making its festival run shortly. We were lucky enough to have gotten our hands on a pre-screening thanks to the generosity of Mr Ogunbiyi and I was absolutely entertained.
In short, it’s a great short. No, it’s not groundbreaking or unique or anything along those lines, but it’s a masterclass in filmmaking and it absolutely raises the bar in terms of technical quality and finesse. Sometimes simple done really well can be truly satisfying. Thanks for reading and as always, stay sordid. The poster artwork is below.
