‘House of Lexi’ Short Film Review
Stars: Emma Dark, Helen Stephens, Jane Garda, Sean Francis Mclaughlin | Written and Directed by M W Daniels
House of Lexi begins with a panoramic scan along a beautiful beach, the slow low-key score mimicking the smoothness of the camera. I loved this opening. It was calm, it was intriguing and it peaked my curiosity. The plot, without giving you too many details (this is a short film after all, it would be a disservice to tell you everything), follows Lexi Stone, a woman who finds herself haunted by her own past. Having lost her mother in a car accident and her baby sister at birth, Lexi see’s her sister with her, growing up alongside her, but starts to become haunted by her presence, and in turn question everything that is going on around her. It’s a very interesting premise and one I thought was conceptually original considering the simplicity of the plot at its most basic form. It was done well, and the management of the sound alongside the visuals was one of the big hitters for me here, it took the film up a few notches for sure.
The musical score here is really something, it sweeps in and out of the film, rising like the tide and settling back down while the characters speak. I thought it was done very well, and the dialogue wasn’t wasted, it did what it needed to do, with most of the focus of the film being more on the psychological tone, the visual occurrences happing around Lexi Stone, and the tension that was built.
There are trippy sequences here too, moments that make you flinch out of the pretty standard moments that precede them. The suburban location is one of the most disturbing for me, in that it is the most relatable to most of it, and so seeing these things happening to Lexi in this settling, her home, was effective. Emma Dark plays Lexi, and she does a great job of expressing the fear, confusion and torment that she encounters. There isn’t enough time to build characters or spend too long with anyone, but what we are given is an intriguing tale that truly captured my mind for its fifteen minute runtime.
It’s a curious films with visual metaphors and bizarre elements under its slick surface, which I appreciate. The sound is great, and I really enjoyed what I saw here. From time to time I’ll watch a short film and think to myself just how cool it would be to see it expanded upon, maybe given a feature length adaptation, and this was one of those occasions, although at the same time I feel like the beauty of House of Lexi is in its reluctance to say too much, in its vague nature.
A beautiful short, both to the ear and the eyes. This was a treat.
