Horror has often examined the role of addiction: lots of its best-known antagonists have laboured under something of this kind, and it’s fertile ground for taking a closer look at people, their motivations and their flaws. This is the rationale behind short film Boo (2019), an economical exercise in filmmaking which shows a careful hand and sense of structure throughout its fifteen minute running time.
The film starts with a man, Jared (Josh Kelly), startled by the appearance of his girlfriend Devi (also director and writer Rakefet Abergel) at his passenger-side window. Her hands are bloodied and she’s in distress; this is not the straightforward ride home he’d envisaged. Using a time frame which flashes forward and backwards between two pivotal moments, we see Dev some time just prior to this, emerging from an AA meeting with some of her friends, in proud receipt of a 7 years’ sober chip. Still, she tells her friends, she still misses some aspects of drinking – the smell, for instance, even after all that time. They head off into the night while she waits for Jared, reassuring them that she’ll be fine.
Dev said she still suffers from temptation: bang on cue, a car door opens and an inebriated guy emerges. He’s one of those ‘can’t take no for an answer’ kind of guys, as the film quickly reveals; the situation quickly begins to spiral out of control, and although the way in which the film cuts between past and present masks the length of Dev’s ordeal and how her lapse affects her, we know enough to understand why she is so shaken up and panicked when Jared gets there. Or do we?
Boo riffs on that idea, that an addict is an addict is an addict, no matter how much time elapses; the way in which horror underpins this is by shining a different kind of light on the behaviour, making it something monstrous which haunts Dev and makes her fear that Jared will not see her as the person she wants to be. Good short films can get all of that across in often just a few minutes and Boo qualifies for this; whilst genre stalwarts might be able to see where things are heading, a decent pace and handling, with touches such as revisiting aspects of the dialogue under drastically different circumstances, help Boo to get its points across well. It also has enough about it that you may find yourself reconsidering earlier scenes – were they entirely what they seemed to be?
A sharp film with a pleasing punchline – including a neat final scene which asks one question more – Boo is an effective horror short, with a lively feel and much to recommend it.
You can find out more about Boo (2019) and director Rakefet Abergel by clicking here.