¿Dónde está la biblioteca?
Main Cast: Zoe Jarman, Kylee Russell
Director: Dan Samijian
You know what the world needs more of? Horror movies set in a high school with a sub as the main character and hero who uncovers a sinister plot taking place inside the school and they fight back against the evil and save the school, the students, and possibly the world.
Or not. I was kidding; we don’t actually need more of those movies. But that didn’t stop director Dan Samijian and co-writer Dave Cain from making a short anyway with 2017’s THE SUB.
Zoe Jarman plays Mae Zalinski, the titular sub who is having a very strange day in a very strange school where the students are NOT pleased that she can’t find and administer the test they were supposed to take that day. All hail the curriculum.
But Mae tries to make the best of it, instead bringing out a pinata and giving the kids a crack at breaking it open. When blindfolded Penny Petzinger (Kylee Russell) accidentally hits another student with her field hockey stick, the other students insist she be punished because violence of any kind is against the rules. The students are very adamant about that.
After class, Mae goes to the teacher’s lounge where she overhears the other teachers talking cryptically about something they’re doing after school, something that involved duct tape. All hail the curriculum.
I think we all see where this is going and I have to say if I hadn’t already been over this 15-minute short, I probably would have been at this point.
And it wasn’t even that the story was so trite and predictable. For me, the biggest problem was if I come to a HORROR channel I would like to watch a HORROR movie. If I was in the mood for a horror comedy, I’d have gone to a horror comedy channel. And I know, I know, all the best horror uses comedy as a break from the tension, but you first have to build up some tension, and THE SUB jumped into the comedy feet first. Yes, there was that very, very brief cold open with Heather Langenkamp as the regular Spanish teacher who is attacked in a closet, but we break from that REAL quick and from there on it’s bright colors and Zoe Jarman’s considerable comedic talents on display. In a horror short.
There were so many gags and cheap jokes in THE SUB that, by the time we finally get to the actual HORROR of the story, I just didn’t care anymore. Especially considering the plot itself was so overused.
Now, having said that, it wasn’t all bad; there were some good things. It’s very well made. Samijian only had two other director credits at this time, but he’d been in movies for years before in several different positions, so he definitely knows his way around a film set. Jarman’s acting credits go back to 2005 and did I mention the Heather Langenkamp cameo? THE SUB has definite talent behind it. I just wish the story had been more original OR that there hadn’t been so much emphasis on the comedy. Or that it had just been a straight comedy, because Jarman’s talents definitely lie in that direction.
So as a short film, THE SUB works. As a HORROR short … can we just watch COOTIES again?
Watch it here:
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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