"Eater" - The Duffer Brothers (Creators of Stranger Things) first short film

While 2016 was the year of consecration for the Duffer Brothers, due to the hit series "Stranger Things", they have been working in the film medium for sometime (quite obviously). Today we are going back to 2007, the year they did their first official short film called “Eater”.

The film takes place during the course of a night, inside a police station. The protagonist is a young police man. A rookie in his first week of service.

That night in particular they are holding a hight profile prisoner. A killer that eats his victims… and things go wrong from there…

The film is well executed technically, specially for a first piece. I particularly like the first transition from the credits to the first shot of the film.

It has some good tension and for a short film they gave some nice background story to the young cop. Many short films (and even features) do seem to rush the character development to get to the suspense. Here, they took a couple of minutes to establish his relationship with his wife and who he is. I liked that.

It is a good production full of dolly shots and production values. I liked the colour and light, the shots, the acting, special (and practical) effects.

However I must say it is not an extraordinary film. I would say it is an OK film that is well executed. The narrative is nothing out of this world and the end also is not as memorisable as it is set out to be. All and all I would say “It’s an ok film, that won’t waste your time, but you won’t fell an urge to see it again”.

Personally I always like to see the earlier work of well establish filmmakers, I do find it extremely interesting. And I was happy to see it if not, for that reason alone. What should be mentioned is the fact that the film is from 2007 and only very recently made it’s way into the collective consciousness. Exactly the same film… nine years later , makes an impact… I’ll let you reflect on that...

Hope you enjoy.

(It would take the brothers 8 years after this short to make a feature film. I will be writing on it soon)

Let me know what you think of the film?