brandodragonberg Review of Ultimomostro

Ultimomostro (2015 TV Short)

Best way to fight your monsters is to bring one on your side

[8/10 · 1 July 2015]

I enjoyed the central idea in this movie that a simple way to fight the invisible monsters in one's childhood is actually to enlist one of them as your defender. It's a pretty original take on the theme of childhood fear and something I haven't seen so simply, yet coherently developed in a short movie in a while. This is clearly not your typical high budget, fully cast short. As a matter of fact, the end credits are so short that you really begin to wonder who really took part in this production. But, be it the casting choices or the atmosphere that the directors have been able to recreate, it works for most part. The location where they shot it is also interesting: a long corridor with arabesque tiles on the floor, obviously a real apartment rather than a studio set. I found the idea of the high wall filled with dark drawings a very effective way to explain what is actually going on, and some of the pictures are actually kind of scary. Where the short is probably a bit lacking, for the obvious budgetary constraints typical of short movie productions, is in the special effects department. I appreciated the simplification in the story structure and in the basic concept of the movie, but I would have expected a scarier, more elaborate monster. Or not to see it all.