Darryl Knickrehm is the head of DK Productions and is the writer, director, editor, cinematographer, and producer of all of his films. Darryl is a filmmaker living and working in Japan that makes movies utilizing mostly Japanese resources such as actors and locations, while cleverly blending in western sensibilities. He has been compared to both Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO) and Shinya Tsukamoto (TETSUO) in his filmmaking techniques by other reviewers.
His personal quote is, “The goal in my films is to make a bridge between eastern and western cinema. In story and style I want to mix the best in both worlds.” In fact, his films are so visually inspiring that they rarely need dialogue. Two of his shorts I received contain no dialogue and the longer short only had dialogue that was necessary to move the story forward.
The short film “152” follows 3 friends who enter a tunnel on a dare with no flashlight. But they are not alone and that something has followed them.
Similar in theme and feel to RINGU (THE RING) or KAIRO (PULSE), Knickrehm examines a ghost haunting through modern day devices, in this case a cell phone receiving emails, voicemails, and pictures. This is a taut thriller that is done justice with the short screen time and fast pacing. The film could easily be converted to feature length, but I think it is far scary in this form.
Effective use is made of the chilling music provided by composer Phillip Van Louwen and the striking visuals featuring fade to black & white shots and distorted images. The film runs as a lean 32 minutes and offers English/Japanese Subtitles. DVD Extras include Deleted Scenes, the Soundtrack, Pre-CGI footage, and a “Making of” Featurette.
“In Absentia” follows a man who finds clues to piece together his nightmarish existence. What do a key, knife, finger, and a hooded man mean together?
Again, the short screen time and quick pacing did the story good by nicely wrapping up with a twist ending in just 9 minutes. This is the one most reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s work with MOMENTO coming to mind. It could be expanded to feature length with the nightmare sequences drawn out, but with the same great ending intact. The only DVD Extra is the one dialogue scene that was cut. The film is wordless otherwise.
“The Visiting” has a man dealing with the loss of a friend and has a visitor at his new place one night. But is he going crazy or is he really being haunted?
This was the weaker of the bunch because I felt it ended abruptly with no resolution or explanation. Whereas the other two wrapped up nicely with tension building up to climactic endings, this added up to not much. As with the others, this had stunning visuals. Runs at a mere 8 minutes, dialogue-free, with no DVD Extras.
All of the shorts deal with ghosts and spirituality, but all in different manners, which make them unique and able to stand on their own. For more information on DK Pro movies, please visit them here: http://www.dariru.com
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