The House Was Not Hungry Then (U.K., 2025)
Official synopsis: An abandoned house in the Scottish countryside holds a terrible secret. Day after day, a man posing as a real estate agent lures visitors inside, and one by one they disappear. One night a young woman searching for her estranged father takes refuge inside, but soon begins to feel she’s not alone. As she gets closer to discovering the truth about her father, she explores the dark interior and eavesdrops on the disturbing relationship between the house and its caretaker, learning that sometimes the monster is not who we expect.
Aficionados of experimental independent horror should find writer/director Harry Aspinwall’s The House Was Not Hungry Then a highly intriguing watch. Aspinwall riffs on the haunted house premise, making the point of view from the house itself as both observer and participant. Cinematographer Stephen D. Grant uses non-moving camera shots placed a fair distance back from most of the proceedings, as he and Aspinwall combine to deliberately give viewers a detached feeling. This latter element continues with the characters, as they are unnamed. The two main characters are a young woman who breaks into the house (Bobby Rainsbury) during her search for her estranged father and a real estate agent (Clive Russell) who provides sustenance for the abode in the way of unwary prospective buyers. A constant air of dread looms over the proceedings, and once we learn the dread secret of the house, some truly unnerving occurrences happen. Aspinwall aims for shudders more than shocks, and the slow, deliberate pacing means that viewer mileage will vary. Rainsbury and Russell both give solid performances, though the film emphasizes form over character development and to some point, even character investment. The House Was Not Hungry Then is the sort of horror film that will prove divisive, but for those who seek out the unusual in fear fare, it is certainly worth seeking out.
One Last Dance (Austria, 2024)
Official synopsis: An out of the ordinary suicide mission of a woman who fails to let go of her deceased husband.
As writer/director Lukas Galle’s short science fiction film One Last Dance begins, Clara (Lara Ziffer) declines a dinner invitation to her mother. Instead, she engages in a 3-minute session with what seems to be a holographic image of her deceased husband Victor (Emmanuel Ajayi) during which the two dance. Clara refuses to let go of Victor despite his pleas to do so as time runs out. As a short, One Last Dance is an effective story that leaves viewers to imagine what happens next. It also leaves us tantalized and wanting more, as the work feels like an impressive proof of concept for a feature film. Ziffer and Ajayi display fine chemistry together, and Galle does a superb job of wringing maximum world building, drama, and tension out of the short’s 3-minute running time.
The House Was Not Hungry Then and One Last Dance screen as part of Cinequest, which runs March 11–23, 2025, in San Jose, California.
