TikTok is a treasure trove of horror movie recommendations. If you aren’t an active user of the app, I’d highly suggest at least trying it to find your next creepy watch. One recent recommendation from the app is a short film called Curve. The short is existential horror incarnate.
Directed by Tim Egan, Curve won Best Short at both Fantastic Fest and Sitges in 2016. Now, it’s getting its flowers again thanks to TikTok. With over three million views on YouTube, it’s a film that’s guaranteed to get under your skin.
The film focuses on a woman who wakes up on a strange concrete curve where every move could mean plummeting to her death. For ten excruciating minutes, we watch her grip to the curve for dear life and attempt to find a way out. But around her are the sounds of others in a similar predicament falling into the abyss that awaits them. YouTube user I am Jason points out, “At 6:35 you can hear someone fall to their death (I was wearing headphones)…so she’s obviously not alone on this. This must be some type of “saw” [sic] torture game she was put into.”
According to Short of the Week, “Curve was inspired by two key moments in the director’s life – the first being hit by a car and the second a conversation with a depressed friend.”
Egan told them, “I still remember the feeling of wet tarmac under my fingers” as he recalls his experience of being hit by a car. Then, he went on to share the conversation he had with a friend in the midst of grief, which serves as the central metaphor for Curve. Egan said,
“The only good moments of her day were the seconds after she woke up. Her mind was clear and at peace for a few seconds before she remembered her pain. Then grief rushed in, a feeling not unlike vertigo. She said the earth opened up beneath her and the rest of her day was simply about holding on by sheer force of tension”.
TikTok user jackcdg shared a clip from Curve with the caption “my favourite short film ever”. He also created a music video using the short, which has 9.5 million views in just one month.
Another TikTok user sushisreads shared clips of Curve, offering a more detailed analysis specifically focused on our only character.
Several YouTube users also pointed out the calm and measured reaction of the woman. In his comment, Shreyansh Shukla said:
An average person would have just panicked and fell deeper into the pit. But this woman is a Survivor. Calm, strategic and pain enduring in such a situation. Damn. If this character would be in a real tv show I’d so binge it.
If you have ten minutes to spare, we highly recommend checking this film out.
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