Prey

Many of you reading this will have had mornings when you've woken up unable to recall quite what happened the night before. For Tom (Fergal Philips) it's more worrying, because something may have happened that could land him in deep trouble. There's a smear of blood in the bathroom. He's having flashbacks about the woman he took home. A brief conversation with his flatmate implies that he has a history of violence against women – or, as he puts it, “I get a bit carried away sometimes.”

There's a twist, of course – let's just say that Tom's mistakes come back to haunt him. Intercutting between possible memories, possible dreams of hallucnations, this tightly edited film keeps us off balance despite the essentially clichéd nature of its story. There's little imagination in the story but the characters are well drawn and convincingly portrayed, whilst the overall look of the film is stunning given that it was shot on a budget of just £500. Clearly an enormous amount of care has gone ito making this. It may be tacky, it may have a ridiculously OTT soundtrack, but it's a high quality production.

Ultimately, Prey is too slight to carry much weight even as a short film, but it's a great advertisement for the technical talents of those involved. Forgettable though it may be, it will provide an entertaining eight minutes for horror fans.