Kitchen Sink (1989)

What a beautiful movie!

Awesome Movie

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This short film by Alison Maclean reminded me of another Kiwi short horror movie I saw several years ago called THE FRENCH DOORS . Both are set against humdrum ordinary life when the protagonists chance upon something out of the extraordinary . There is a problem with both films in that when this extraordinary event happens neither of them contacts anyone they know or the police but this is the cinematic convention of horror - if anyone does anything sensible then the story ends there and then . There's also the slight problem in both films that the enigmatic events remain unexplained but I guess the journey is more important than the destination Maclean shoots the film in monochrome which adds to the atmosphere . She also makes use of the genre language by using sound to cause the viewer to jump . It's a cliché but a very effective one Perhaps the stand out aspect is the soundtrack by The Headless Chickens , a band I've never heard of but whose electro pop track reminded me very much of Matt Johnson' ( Aka The The ) best work of the 1980s and I'll certainly be tracking down their music on Youtube

I just happened to see this as I was looking through the horror shorts here at IMDb. I thought I would would give it a look see and I have to say I had mixed reactions to this film. It was interesting and I had no idea where it was going after the tub scene. It also was a bit to strange and the ending had me wondering what just happened. There really is no satisfying conclusion, but a film this vague usually is going to end, well vaguely. The story focuses on a woman who starts pulling what appears to be a hair from the sink in her kitchen. Well it turns out that at the end of this hair is a strange thing that she immediately throws in the garbage. She then for some reason puts it in the bathtub and turns on the water. Why, I can not say. The thing grows and then the movie just becomes one big question mark. I kept expecting her to get attacked by the thing when it was in the bath thus being the conclusion one might expect from a horror short like this and for anybody who has read that Stephen King short about the finger in the drain. That does not happen as the film gets stranger. People say it is about loneliness, but the main problem with that is that there is nothing to indicate this woman is indeed lonely until she has that scene in the bed. Like I said, weird and strange. Kept me interested and guessing and the music is haunting and nicely understated, but I do not know the conclusion and parts of the film needed more work or back story.

I loved this short film to pieces. When I saw it was called `The Hairy Fetus' so it took me forever to find anything on it. It was the kind of thing that I was just transfixed on the entire time. It moved along so well and got continually better and better as it went along. Then the end ending! I've never been so disgusted with a film I couldn't take my eyes off of. I wish short films like this were more readily available so people could have access to them. Its not something you can rent. I actually caught it by accident between films on The Sundance Channel years ago, but it really stuck with me all these years. If you can catch it anywhere have a looksie.

This film caught my eye because it reminded me of Eraserhead, being in Black & White and having eerie sound. A woman pulls a hair out of a sink plughole. It continues to grow longer and wider, until a strange foetus emerges, and is flung out. The woman puts the object in the bath. She returns to it later to find it is now a large, excessively hairy man. She shaves the man completely, but he seems dead. She puts him into a plastic bag. He awakes, and she kisses him. Then she makes a fateful error. Worth a look.