GEIST. Straight Into Deep Water

In Geist, bluntness takes the form of… horror. Eleven minutes with this Irish short will show just how close to our hearts that face of terror really is.

Feature-length thrillers, by virtue of their running time, usually draw viewers into an atmosphere of unease gradually, allowing moments of respite between scares. Short films work very differently. Their creators have far less time to distribute the weight of meaning, so the audience’s attention must be seized immediately—and held without pause.

That path was taken by Alex Sherwood, Ben Harper, and Sean Mullen—the directors and screenwriters of the 2015 animated short Geist. The film wastes no time, throwing the viewer straight into deep water. It is a situation the protagonist has narrowly escaped himself. He is a fisherman who survived the wreck of his trawler. The story begins as the sea washes him up on a beach. The storm, however, shows no sign of letting up, so the castaway staggers toward a nearby house. Although it appears abandoned, he soon realizes that he may not be alone inside.

The secret he uncovers is enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine. Without spoiling it, I’ll only say that I appreciate the honesty of the ending this brief tale leaves us with. From the very start, the protagonist is steeped in despair, and the filmmakers never part the clouds above him, not even for a moment. This is not a comforting story—but it is painfully authentic. True horror lies, after all, in the fragility of our existence.