My Skin/Scream For Me

Stateside festivalgoers may well be familiar with the work of Christopher Alan Broadstone as not only have his short shockers been screened to great applaud at horror festivals across the USA but have garnered so much interest that they have (rightfully) received various awards. Now for the first time all we less fortunate genre fans across the globe that have not yet had the opportunity can now check out his work.

'My Skin' opens at the scene of the brutal murder of a young female; her bound and beaten body lies discarded on the floor of a small seedy office. Calmly sitting reviewing the bloody handiwork is a sinister looking chisel faced man and although we soon he discover he's not in fact the perpetrator of this particular malevolent crime he swiftly but calmly sets about covering any tracks that would lead to the murderers identity. As he finishes the clean up job he picks up the phone and makes a call to the real killer but not to tell him his tracks have been removed but to deliver a chilling message that will strike fear into the assailants cold heart. Who is this mysterious old man and what are his real reasons for why he is there and what he is doing?

'My Skin' is a great little shocker filled with suspense and atmosphere, in the short space of 13 minutes filmmaker Broadstone delivers a tight chilling little thriller that shows exactly why it was deserving of its plaudits at US festival screenings. Beautifully shot and tightly edited, 'My Skin' shows great promise to what we can expect from its director of he ever gets the chance to make a full length feature and film financiers really should sit up and take note, here is a guy that has the capability to deliver.

As I said, thankfully we can all now enjoy filmmakers Broadstone's work thanks to the release of this independently produced DVDR release and even more welcomingly you really do get your moneys worth with this well presented DVD package. Not only do you get the aforementioned main feature short but also a whole slew of extras including another complete bonus short…

'Scream For Me' is another of Christopher Braodstones crowd pleasing genre shorts that takes a refreshingly different but chilling look into the mind of the serial killer. 'Scream For Me' opens in a run down dingy apartment with wannabe killer Gareth Druck hunched over the body of his young female victim as he slowly throttles the last breathe from her quickly waning life. But just as she begins to fade into her eternal darkness he slaps her demanding she not die just yet as he hasn't heard her scream for him (hence the title). Suddenly the door bursts open and in comes someone who is about to turn the tables on Druck's killing way of life on its heels with even more terrifying results.

With 'Scream For Me' filmmaker Broadstone shows that he's not just a one trick pony with the aforementioned 'My Skin' by taking a very differing set piece and thrusting his own very individual mark on proceedings, making for a very satisfying and chilling viewing experience. Whilst admittedly I slightly veer towards 'My Skin' as my own personal favourite both shorts will very much be to the liking of most genre viewers. Again, 'Scream For Me' looks great o this DVDR presentation though sadly my review copy did suffer some artifacting during 'Scream For Me' which was a shame (but all the more reason for a savvy company to license these for release on the mainstream market).

Both short films come with their own extra features: 'My Skin' comes with a short promo trailer and a nice stills gallery whilst 'Scream For Me' comes not only with its own stills and trailer but also it's own wee bonus behind the scenes documentary 'A Tragic Comedy Of Errors' wrapping up proceedings nicely and making for great value for money for anyone wary of splashing out cash on what they essentially would see as a short film feature.

I'm thrilled that Christopher Broadstone's work is now out there for folk outside of the US festival circuit to see, this is another very talented filmmaker that is very worthy of your attention and again a name that should be noted for future developments in the genre movie scene. This double feature presentation makes for great value viewing and is therefore well worth picking up. The indie genre scene is getting better all the time, let's give it our support - check it out!

For more info on 'My Skin' and filmmaker Christopher Alan Broadstone visit the films production website by clicking here.

Review by Alan Simpson