Two bloodied bed carry a body bag into the desert. What is in the bag leads them down a path of spectral surprise that will alter their lives forever.
Set against a 1971 southwest, two men are forced to transport a mysterious bag across the desert. As the two begin their trek, the journey blurs into a haze of guilt, paranoia, and supernatural terror.
There’s Something in the Bag
Unnamed and unspeaking, the two men carry the bag to a secluded spot just off the road, where they meet a figure cloaked in black. An exchange happens and a small dark pouch is passed from one party to the other, the body bag then being carried off by the figure. In There’s Something in the Bag, we never find out what that something actually is, but we know it was a life altering matter.
I have reviewed Westmar Film shorts in the past, and I must say that I love the way they all feel within the same world. In There’s Something in the Bag, we are again in the American Southwest amongst the lonely desert roads — a place where secrets are easily buried and supernatural experiences are had. This short is no different in that regard; it is, however more mysterious that the last. There is no dialog, as everything is done through acting and body language. There isn’t some big reveal of a monster either, because our “Big Bad” is a different type of horror — slow, ghostly, but somehow obscenely dangerous. I can only imagine how the two men came to find this entity and what they had to go through to dispose of that body bag. I am even more scared to think of what would happen if they did it wrong.
There’s Something in the Bag is just under 8 minutes, giving only a small snippet of a bigger story. That said, we see the most important, most poignant parts of it. In their short film mastery, Westmar shares the most important and most interesting pieces of a story; it’s as if they took a feature-length film and condensed it down to just the climax. There’s Something in the Bag works perfectly that way. And remaining in the indie realm with limited budget and runtime, they chose which elements would make the most impact to focus on. Only a little blood splatter for the men, and opaque, raggedy fabric for the desert figure sets the mood for terrifying daytime horror.
There’s Something in the Bag leaves us thinking exactly that. There are no words telling us what happened before or what will happen after. There is no explanation for the cloaked creature or what the “payment” was. There’s nothing but our own curiosity and a sinking feeling that something is lurking between the cacti and tumbleweed on the Southwest. There’s Something in the Bag leaves so many questions unanswered, and though we left the story emptyhanded like the two men in the film, we carry the weight of what happened along with them.
Follow There’s Something in the Bag writer/director Dylan Volker on Instagram, as well as Westmar Film Company on Instagram and YouTube.
