Taylor is having another big fight with his girlfriend Jenny; storming out, he remembers the drunken advice of a friend, collects a hammer from his truck and goes back inside to brutally murder her. The moment is easy, however covering up the crime is another thing – only made more difficult by Taylor struggling to keep a hold on reality.Tell manages to be both obvious but yet very effective at the same time. I see that the reception to the film is very mixed because people generally see it one way or the other but for me it manages to do both pretty well. As a horror of sorts it is all about the tension and build, although there are scenes of violence, really the whole film is about the tension. It does this very well and often I was on the edge of my seat, but at the same time my brain did not let go to the point where I was blind to what the film was doing. See the problem with it is that it is really using every trick in the book – and yes it is using them to get good results, but they still feel like tricks.So the half-seen figures, the blurring or reality/imagined, the camera staring in one direction waiting for something that may or may not come and, of course, that building noise of a score. This latter one is the key thing and it really does help raise the tension. Credit to Ryan Connolly, he knows the genre and he knows what works, using everything to build a simple but very effective film. The cast support him well in this, particularly Bruno, who is a physical manifestation of the tension in the film – he balls it up and sells it. Likewise Eva, although dispatched early on, she remains a creepy presence throughout.The film is very much about genre clichés and familiar old tricks, so I do understand the reservations about it, but at the same time it uses them all together very well to make an effective, gripping and tense 30 minutes. Well worth a look for what it does well.

Having known Ryan Connolly from Film Riot, I had high expectations from him to create a high-quality, professionally-done short film. And although it wasn't necessarily "short" (at least, not in the sense that most people would consider short), he did meet my expectations and then some. Let me say right now that I am not a fan of horror or thriller (however, I am a huge Michael Jackson fan. But that's another story). However, this short film made me enjoy the thrill of being scared and feeling a lot of suspense. From a technical stand point, some could argue that some moments were long, boring, tedious, and beat around the bush. However, I feel as though these are the moments that inflict suspense in the audiences minds and allows their imagination to go crazy. And, in my opinion, he executes these moments perfectly. Speaking of technicality, from an avid film-maker's point of view, I absolutely enjoyed everything. From the lighting, to the color grading/correction to the cinematography. It was beautifully done and such a pleasure for a fellow film-maker's eyes to view. Overall, I gave this short film an 8/10. The only problem I had was that it was not fully original. For those of you who are reading this who are up on your English Literature, you may see some parallels between this short film and a famous short story. But again, I suggest you watch this no matter what kind of genre you are into because you never know what you may or may not enjoy. Hats off to you, Ryan!

Before I go into my review I want to say that I completely understand what the film is about. It's about a guy who in the heat of the moment kills his girlfriend by "accident" and as a result his conscience is making him lose his grip on reality. My problem with the movie has to do a lot with the opening scene. The film starts off in a very confusing manner. A couple is arguing, and it's the girl who's asking the guy what his frustration is about. So we understand that he's frustrated with their relationship, yet he won't say what exactly his frustration stems from. The girl is frustrated at the guy because he doesn't spend time with her, a point to which the guy has no real response to. At first I thought maybe he's cheating on her, but that can't be because he too is frustrated with their relationship. A cheater will usually try to keep cool and not raise any suspicions or try to sabotage one relationship because it could ruin the other. So the whole time I'm thinking, what is so secretive that he can't tell her? He can't be a professional assassin because it becomes very apparent he can't deal with the pressure of murdering someone. So what is so secretive that he can't tell her "I'm upset about this", like a real couple would do? What is so secretive that it leads to a massive argument that leads in someone's death. If arguing has been a reoccurring problem like it's suggested, why not break up at this point? The reason this is done in such an illogical fashion, is that if the argument is settled like adults, the movie has no lift off and thus the murder doesn't happen. The clunky delivery of the lines by the actors makes it very apparent that the actors themselves don't know what their characters are fighting about and neither did the writer. The actors don't know of any argument between a couple in which the problem is not put out there, and so they are having a hard time getting into it or understanding the material. And if it is put out there then the audience would not find it a plausible reason to kill her, for this reason it is left a mystery. To the writer this was just a small detail to push the story along and get to the "good stuff". To top it all off the director tries to cover his tracks and tries to bring some seriousness to this flawed scene by filming it in "this is how you know the scene is serious" shot (a.k.a. the close up shot) and also by doing the reality TV hand-held style to make it seem as if this argument is real. Come on Ryan have some guts, do something unexpected, film it on a flat extreme long shot or something I haven't seen. Starting a film with two characters we know nothing about arguing tells us nothing except that they are frustrated. Setting up the scene as something as simple as "I know you're cheating on me" would of sufficed, but this wouldn't lead to a murder it would lead to a break up. In fact, no normal couple argument would ever lead to a murder. The only way it can happen, is if you introduce the male character before the argument as a mentally unstable and frustrated with life character. Maybe he's taken a beating at work, maybe he has no friends, he was released from a mental institution not too far back, he wants to claim a life insurance after her death (a classic), etc. or a combination of multiple things. If the main character is someone who balls up his emotions, and has been building up this anger at his girlfriend or at life for this really long time then show us that. Show us the evolution from someone calm, into an unhappy boyfriend, and then a violently explosive person. This is what I mean by character depth, we know nothing else about these characters except that they are fighting. I have a feeling that this is what Ryan was going for but I shouldn't have to go from hypothetical to hypothetical to arrive at a plausible solution. If you wanted to make a psychological thriller about a man's guilty conscience a little easier, make it about the guy who hits a stranger while driving. Set up as a nice guy with bad luck. I'm sorry I just couldn't get over the issues of the first 5 minutes. On top of that all the actresses were bad in this film, and perhaps miscast because they all look like 20 year old models (except the officer), the lead actually looks the part of a psycho in his late 30s. In fact he is the best thing to happen to this film, his performance takes over the film after that clunky mess in the beginning and gives life to the film. The film lacked plot points though, it did well in representing the main character's internal conflict but I saw the officer coming in and being killed. The movie could of used more gore as well, kind of like Japanese films (I thought the girl's face should of been smashed in or something). Overall the movie was okay. A good score to go along and a good representation of a man losing his grip on reality. I felt some of the shots were conventional or expected for a thriller. The film needed normal shots, shots of before the murder occurs to get the full fear effects when he commits the murder.

I will keep "TELL" and film riot separate because when i watched it i wiped out the name of their youtube super hit show. First thing the story got me totally and by saying that i mean it was nicely interactive between the story and the audience. I found this 33 (waw) minutes short film very well paced(somewhere something very little was missing). In terms of camera angle and a little shakiness turned me down a bit but hey considering the budget and the crew that's the best one can get for sure. But, if i compare this film to other big budget short film, guess what, it will still make a big impression on them. One fact can do it all, "TELL"'s soundtrack was extremely catching and it kept me in tense most of the time. Last but not least a well graded film. I am no guru in terms of any of the issues i just talked about but i know what is comfortable and fun to watch and what is not. Good job Ryan connolly.