Play Me is the latest short horror film from the mind of Caleb Phillips. If that name rings a bell, Aaryn reviewed one of his other works, The Other Side of the Box, one of the better short horror films I’ve seen.
Play Me follows a woman waking up in her car in the middle of nowhere, with a tape recorder and a bagged figure in her back seat. She has no memory of where she is, how she got there, and who is in there with her, and the tape works to fill the gaps in her memory. However, the figure in the backseat wakes up and the woman has to decide who to trust: a voice recording of “herself” telling her to kill whoever is in the car with her, or the figure, claiming to be her brother.
As Aaryn said in his review, short films are a perfect way to tell a horror story. A lot of feature-length films have good ideas but struggle to keep audiences engaged when nothing scary or tense is happening. Short films eliminate that problem, in theory. With films like Play Me, we get right to the action.
These short films are incredible at establishing and maintaining tension. In just 10 minutes, we are on the edge of our seats trying to make sense of the circumstances. We feel the stakes the second she adjusts her rearview mirror and we see the bag-headed figure slumped over.
What I loved about this film is how we are in the same mental state as our protagonist. We know nothing. We don’t know where they are, who either of them are, or why she is being told to kill this person in her car. Once the figure started talking in a very human voice, I began to doubt whether or not the voice recording was truthful. However, once the car door opens, we see the consequences unfold quickly.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Play Me is an incredibly well-done horror short film. It creates a chilling atmosphere without relying on overdone and predictable jump scares. The woman is a perfect surrogate for us as we know as much as she does, and she makes believable, rational decisions. Play Me is available to watch for free on YouTube here.
