‘Off Fleek’ Short Film Review
Stars: Nicola Goodchild, Patrick Marlowe, Shona O’Sullivan, Phoebe Rawlinson | Written and Directed by Steven Dorrington
The horror of social media and the bullying that comes from it is all too real for young people growing up today, so it’s no surprise to see the genre film directors focusing their movies on it.
Off Fleek is a short horror movie, running at less than six minutes, and it takes no time in getting to its point. We start with an all too familiar scene for many as a family of four – mother, father and two daughters – sat at the table for dinner. The youngest daughter goes to use her phone but her mother tells her ‘no phones at the table’ or something to that point. While the older daughter ignores her phone in her pocket which is constantly making noise. It is clear she is getting message after message and soon she asks if she can leave the table.
Heading to her bedroom she eventually gets to look at her phone but she opens it up to a wave of abuse about her appearance. Reading comment after comment she decides to do something drastic to change things.
What makes Off Fleek so shocking is that it feels all too real. I can’t say I have ever really been on the end of this kind of abuse but I know it happens and I know how horrible it is and must be to the receiver. It is easy to see these things happening in real life. Now without going into spoilers I can’t say too much about the conclusion of the movie but I will say that it is truly shocking. Without actually showing much in the way of actual gore, it still managed to turn my stomach. I have watched a lot of the very worst (maybe that’s the wrong word, shocking might be better) in the genre but this still got to me. I
think body horror is the sub-genre that does do that to me the most. Just the thought of what is happening on screen, and some good sound design, make Off Fleek pretty damn horrible. It reminded me of one of the best segments in the ABC of Death franchise and that’s the only similar type of film I have seen but I’m sure there must be more full feature films covering the subject (they often lean towards revenge horror). But if not, there definitely should be!
Even hardened horror fans will be a little taken back by the gruesome final moments of Off Fleek and that can only be a good thing! Check out the short below:
