Il Ritorno di Elena
As a film fan I watch quite a lot of short films and its fair to say the quality varies a lot as does, quite frankly, the objective of the film makers themselves. From this the majority generally fall into one of two categories - the attempt at making something visual at the expense of story resulting in nothing more than a technical portfolio piece; or something very short and without much context, depth or style.
Thankfully some stories do want to tell a story, make you think about the characters motivations and in some cases actually want the audience to you with the film on some level.
Not quite reaching the pinnacle of the short film, Il Ritorno di Elena (2013) is still a commendable effort by Roman writer/director Daniele Misischia (End Roll) who has produced a number of interesting looking horror shorts as well as several based on popular video games many of which deserve hunting down.
This particular short film came to my attention through the casting of the Cosi Perversa favourite Erika Kamese (Hippocampus M21th; Violent Shit: The Movie) who plays the eponymous Elena. All set for a hot date she welcomes round an unnamed man, played by Rimi Beqiri (Virus: Extreme Contamination - which we have covered in this very blog) and what starts out as a civilised meal quickly becomes a brutal nightmare as he breaks with social etiquette and quite frankly acts as a brute. However it soon becomes apparent that this is no crime of passion as our meticulous lothario quickly shows himself as being adept in the art of cleaning - so perhaps not quite a typical chauvanist after all.
Watching this short, and the way the characters are portrayed made me interested to know, what were there backgrounds, how did they meet and more importantly where did they see this encounter going. This last part is all important as we learn just as much about Elena as we do her mysterious date.
Concluding with a satisfying (and quite Italian, well Fulci-esque) climax we are left to wonder about the true nature of the return of Elena - was it madness, remorse or something else. These elements raise Il Ritorno di Elena above the chaff and make me curious to learn more about contemporary Italian short horror films. You can watch the full short film below: