Scream for Me

With "Scream For Me", it's a wonder that Christopher Alan Broadstone didn't become a name in horror soon after its release. Even now, seven years later, he remains largely unknown. Yet, this short film has all the makings of a great horror masterpiece.

The beautiful Lora Cunningham plays the less than beautiful Irene, who spends much of her time as a corpse (one of the "3 dead girls"). Her ability to express terror and anguish are quite impressive, especially having to do so for several minutes. Gabriel Sigal plays her attacker, Garrott Druck. He, too, has a great range -- from anguish and terror as well, to psychotic sexual pervert. In some ways, Druck is the victim of this story on multiple levels, because even from the very beginning we almost can't help but feel sorry for him.

Tony Simmons steals the show as Madman, a crazy yet somehow romantic sexual deviant, who spends the bulk of this film in the nude (and Broadstone is not hesitant to show us this). He is vicious, violent and huge -- a killer deserving of a sequel or three. One can only hope he isn't confined to this one appearance.

Broadstone's editing and directing are both superb here, getting in some mazing angles. He works well with the emotions of the character's eyes and I really enjoyed how he uses reflections to show something off-screen. His real strength is in his writing, though, as he takes what could have been 30 seconds of dialog and stretches it to 20 minutes. Most writers would have added all sorts of bad monologues and cheesy one-liners, but the flow here is completely smooth and natural. Top it off with some great music (which allowed this film to open with full intensity from the first second) and you've got an instant classic.