The Ten Steps is a short film that drew me in quickly and built up the tension very well. It is about a teenage girl who is home watching her little brother while her parents are out to dinner with the father's new boss. The girl, Kaite, calls and interrupts the dinner because the little brother is misbehaving--a minor annoyance. Then, the power goes out and she has to call back. Her father gives her instructions to check the fuse box in the cellar. This is when we find out that Katie is afraid to go in there, as some unknown event cause a panic attack earlier. The wife of the boss mentions that the house has a strange reputation, so as viewers, we begin to anticipate something bad about to happen. Katie agrees to go into the cellar so that her parents won't have to leave the dinner. The mother suggests that they get home, but the father begins to talk with Katie as she descends the steps...SPOILER: Katie counts as she takes each step. We hear noises and see the fear on her face. The tension builds as the father encourages her to continue. She gets to the tenth step, which is supposed to be the bottom--but she keeps counting. The film fades to the credits as we hear Katie count all the way to 52, her voice echoing as if in some underground cavern.

This film is one of many that are included in a collection of short films entitled "Shorts: Volume Four". This and the rest of the films in this series are interesting shorts made mostly but up and coming film makers.The film starts with a teenager and her younger brother at home alone. It seems their parents are out working on an important business deal over dinner with some clients. However, the kids interrupt the meal twice. The first time is pretty unimportant but the second time the power goes out and it means the teen needs to go into the dreaded dark cellar to fix the fuses--even though she has a phobia about this.While this film is incredibly simple, they did a great job of creating a creepy and malevolent mood. It ended well for a short, but boy did I wish it had lasted longer--I really wanted to see what would happen next! Good stuff.

Just became available on February 27. Check it out - the slow build up works very well as others have commented, and you'll feel your pulse pick up. Be warned though that the short is very dark and hard to see in places, even if you watch it in full screen mode. However, this does contribute heavily to the mood as you try to see what is going on in all the darkness. The ending really leaves you thinking, like a ghost story from childhood. Good spooky stuff! The director is apparently working on a full length feature now. There's enough atmosphere and tight grasp of storytelling here to really look forward to what he'll do next.

Left alone in her new home to look after her little brother, Katie is generally creeped out by her new home but is coping alright until all the lights go out. She rings her parents who are at a meal that is important to her Dad's career and naturally they are not keen to leave for a problem that she could fix herself. Her Dad directs her down into the cellar and down the ten steps to the bottom, where she will find the fuse box.The problem with finding something you love and telling people is that it then becomes build up in the minds of the other people before they see it and something that surprised you turns into something that doesn't live up to expectations for them. I did it with the short French Doors and I suspect that The Ten Steps has the risk of being the same because, although it is chilling and effective, it is almost certainly not brilliant and praising it too much risks building expectations that it can't meet. So I have a problem then, because I did think it was really good but hyping it further will only produce a sense of anti-climax when the expectant viewer reaches the low-key ending. The whole film is atmosphere because there are no real jump-scares and fortunately it does this well. The direction makes good use of the haunted house and sets up a tension that heightens the whole way down the stairs. The main complaint I would have in this regard was that the restaurant scenes were too bright and colourful and jarred with the dark stairs – a more subdued setting would have helped and I'm not saying that the restaurant needed to be as eerie.Jill Harding's Katie really helps the atmosphere as well. Considering her face is all we can see for a lot of the film, it was important that she be convincingly frightened – and she is. The actors playing her parents are a lot less convincing; her "father" in particular didn't convince as he sent her into somewhere she was scared of just so he could impress his boss. However these are all minor problems because the atmosphere does work and it is quite chilling in a low-key sort of way. Don't expect too much and you'll probably be as pleasantly surprised as I was.