Julien Neaves, Caribbean Head Writer
How did it come to this? – Théoden (Bernard Hill) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The latest short film from plucky Trinidad and Tobago production house GT Network is supernatural thriller Turnt. Written and directed by Andrew Joseph (Uppers), the film follows a man named Stephan (Ricardo Lopez) who sees flashes of his life after being mortally wounded.
Supernatural thriller short Turnt is one of those films that the less you know going in, the better the experience. I will therefore not be going into plot details and will keep my thoughts as broad as possible. The movie is quite dark, both in terms of lighting and narrative. All scenes are set at night, and the music is suitably moody and creepy. There is also some interesting costuming work on display here.
The story is like an ebony onion, peeling back layers to reveal a disturbing tale that shows that each choice has its consequences. It is surprisingly dense for a film that is just 11 minutes long and the time-jumping narrative forces the viewer to pay attention to what is happening. Thankfully, it is not too complicated, and I did appreciate the opportunity the use my brain to figure out what was happening.
The acting is serviceable, though some of the dialogue does come off stiff at times. And some viewers may be turned off by the complexity of the narrative. But overall, I really enjoyed Turnt and I appreciated all the work poured into this strange short film.
Editor Jules’ Score: 7.5 out of 10
You can watch Turnt for yourself by clicking here. And you can check out more Trini short film content below:
Julien “Editor Jules” Neaves is a TARDIS-flying, Force-using Trekkie whose bedroom stories were by the Cryptkeeper, learned to be a superhero from Marvel, but dreams of being Batman. I love promoting Caribbean film (Cariwood), creating board games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like “13 flavours of awesome sauce”. Read more.