• Produced and directed by John Gonzalez, Trent Shumway, and Slava Siderman
• Written by John Gonzalez
• Starring
  • Jason Fenton
  • Leonard Clifton
  • Ellen Horn

Way back when I watched 3 Evil Tales for review, I noticed a coming attraction for a film from Black Russion Films, a truly professional looking trailer for a film called Y2K: Shutdown Detected. Imagine my pleasure, then when I got an e-mail last week from Slava Siderman at Black Russian, asking how he could get his film reviewed. I sent him my address, and it soon arrived on my doorstep.

I’ve voiced my opinions about short films before. Aside from inclusion in an anthology video (which aren’t exactly the most popular vehicle in the world), a short film is almost Hollywood’s bastard child: there’s simply no market, no audience, for it.

I do have to submit an addendum to that opinion: A short film’s real main purpose is not to be shown to general audiences, but to be shown to people in “the industry” who may then fork over cash for the filmmakers’ next project.

And for that purpose, Y2K: Shutdown Detected should work phenomenally.

What we have here is not really a short film; it was a feature-length project, but the three directors (Slava Siderman, John Gonzales, and Trent Shumway) filmed only enough of it to edit into a 22-minute film. As such, it’s not really coherent as a short, but seems more like the world’s longest trailer, or a Cliff Notes version.

Since the plot doesn’t really come through easily, here’s what I gleaned:

Even though a maverick hacker has been brought in to bring the computers at Kirtland Biotech up to snuff, he’s still working down to the wire on New Year’s Eve. He thinks he has it fixed, and the computer even works after midnight. For maybe a whole minute. Then it goes apeshit. As far as I could tell, the Y2K bug caused the computer to:

• cease recognizing security badges — in fact, to cease recognizing human beings at all;
• try to identify said humans by invasive techniques;
• create a huge gelatinous creature from a genetic sample to perform such an operation;
• reanimate the corpse of of one its subjects to continue its investigations;
• modify the human genetic code and implant its modifications into the body of a human female, to be born only a few hours later.

Like I said, the storyline suffers drastically from the trimming it received. On the other hand, the productions values were fantastic: Shot in 16mm, the cinematography took every advantage of the claustrophobic corporate setting. Make-up was first-rate, creature effects were beautiful, and the displays created for the computer terminals were stunning.

And then I was really stunned, because following the 22-minute short is at least twice that much “behind-the-scenes” footage, all given almost as much attention as far as editing and computer titles go.

They showed production sketches and maquettes done for sequences and creatures not included in the final short; storyboards and video test footage for sequences later shot in film; incredibly cheap FX techniques that looked phenomenal in the film (my favorite is the Ultraslimed garbage bags shot against a bluescreen that became the massive slime creature). The makeshift techniques looked incredibly professional on screen; for instance, their “dollies” were actually skateboards, office chairs, and a moving car. CGI added all muzzle flashes and some explosive wounds (none of which looked like CGI in the movie). And to top it off, everything was shot without sound. The rerecording and Foley work were so good that I had no idea that it was all shot silent.

Granted, it took two years to produce 22 minutes, but the attention to detail allowed them to turn out a polished, professional-looking demo film. If they can just get this tape into the right hands in La-La Land (always a dubious proposition), I would fully expect this trio to be making a full-length feature in the near future. And I’d pay money to see it.