REVIEW — Confused (short)

The figurative angel and devil on your shoulders come out to play in this short. Listening to those little voices in your head usually results in keeping you alive, but for this man, it results in the deaths of others. He is more than lost and too far gone; he is Confused.

While a man talks to imaginary (heavenly and hellish) beings, he partakes in hard drugs and alcohol. They encourage him to do atrocious things to his friends — violent, evil acts — and the more he does, the further he goes into madness and debauchery. Soon enough, he is surrounded by bad deeds and death with no one to blame but himself.

On premise alone, Confused is funny; the devil would definitely be the one urging you to do horrible things, but a sexy siren dressed as a dark angel does so instead. She and the suave, white-suited, devil with a Southern drawl are surely characters that bring life to the short.

Confused‘s kills are surprisingly light for the subject matter, but just the right fit for a homegrown indie short. We do see a mountain of white powder but little no blood — except a gash across someone’s head from a baseball bat attack. While the camera cuts away from gore, it does have a moment of fun visual texture via a “cut out/zigzag” graphic as our main character, Graham, slits his wrist. While Confused could have used a little more blood, I don’t mind at all adding flair such as this to make the movie more visually appealing.

Confused is a quick one with a severely simple premise: man is tempted and pays the price. We don’t get any explanation for why the beings are controlling him, but then again, do we really need it at all? Confused is perfectly understandable as it is, and doesn’t weigh down the storyline with unneeded scenes; all it requires is 8 minutes. Confused likely won’t scare you outright (unless you’re religious), but it’s a great conversation starter and fun afterthought.

Watch Confused now on YouTube.