We are constantly looking for new and different films when it comes to bringing you the best in genre entertainment. Short films are often where you find the most exciting new filmmakers taking chances, yet most audiences don’t seek them out. With that in mind, we will be showcasing a short film each week in an effort to give a signal boost to shorts we enjoy.
Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have at least a slight disconnect between the person we present ourselves as online and who we are in our everyday lives. We may try to be funnier and more outgoing on Twitter, show our life as cooler and sexier on Instagram, or censor ourselves on Facebook to avoid offending our mom, but we never give a one hundred percent accurate portrait of ourselves on social media. So take that slight disconnect and amplify it greatly for those YouTube personalities who feed a fantasy version of themselves to their viewers. What happens when the good life they project conflicts with their life when the camera is turned off? And what happens when that fantasy life starts to consume the real life?
OFF TRACK digs into these ideas with a devilish, very dark sense of humor as YouTuber Travis (Travis Bryant, who also wrote the script) finally snaps under the strain of being not so secretly in love with his fake boyfriend/co-host Jack (Jack Merridew). On camera, they have a fun, silly, and sexy relationship. Off camera, Jack wants nothing to do with Travis—a situation that Travis finds a disturbing way to deal with. This is a clever, very current take on a traditional horror set up that Bryant and director Henry Darrow McComas mine for some uncomfortable laughs and one really cringe-worthy makeup effect (earlobe violence gets under my skin).
–Matt Wedge (@MovieNerdMatt)
Tags: Henry Darrow McComas, Jack Merridew, Off Track, Short Film of the Week, Travis Bryant
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