{"id":574,"date":"2015-10-20T08:01:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T13:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/?p=574"},"modified":"2017-05-04T09:41:17","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T14:41:17","slug":"conventional-2015-short-film-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/?p=574","title":{"rendered":"Conventional (2015) – Short Film Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to a few horror conventions over the years, and one things I\u2019ve always found interesting are the celebrity guests who are essentially selling themselves to the fans. There are always a few big-name stars who constantly have fans lined up at their tables and who sell stacks of photos, but there are also those people whose star has faded. Their tables are rarely seen with more than a fan or two, and their stacks of photos never get shorter. I\u2019ve always felt bad for those people. It\u2019s kind of sad to see them sitting there alone, surrounded by pictures that show them what made them famous and remind them of how much they\u2019ve lost. It\u2019s this type of sad, faded star that is the subject of the new black-comedy horror short <\/span>Conventional<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conventional<\/span><\/i> was written and directed by Karen Gillan who is most famous for her roles in <\/span>Dr. Who <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Guardians of the Galaxy<\/span><\/i>, though she\u2019s no stranger to horror having starred in the 2013 film <\/span>Oculus<\/a><\/span><\/i>. Gillan stars in <\/span>Conventional<\/span><\/i> as Rachel Milligan, a scream queen whose claim to fame was a stereotypical slasher sequel titled <\/span>Axe Wound 2<\/span><\/i>. She\u2019s attending a convention as a celebrity guest, but the only people approaching her table or attending her panels are a few random (and creepy) people cosplaying as the killer from her movie.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rachel goes through the motions, taking pictures and trying to act excited for her few fans, but her heart obviously isn\u2019t in it. She doesn\u2019t want to accept what her brush with fame has turned into, but the reality of her situation is staring her in the face. She\u2019s having a breakdown, but how far will she fall?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Alone
Alone at her table.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The run time for Conventional <\/i>about nine minutes, but in that time Gillan manages to create a nice story. She uses some easily recognizable character types and situations as a kind of shorthand to help get people into the story right away. Anyone who has attended a convention of this type will be familiar with the awkwardness of fan\/celebrity interactions at photo ops and in panels, and everyone is probably familiar with the forgotten celebrity who can\u2019t let go. This familiarity makes it easier for the audience to understand and accept it when it goes from sad to dark pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

Gillan also does a nice job making Rachel seem isolated in the way she directed <\/span>Conventional<\/span><\/i>. Rachel is rarely seen in the same shot with another person, and if she does share the screen with someone else she rarely looks directly at them even when speaking. She talks at people rather than to them. There are also some nice wide shots that show her as pretty small against a wide background. It all really shows her detachment from other people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Feeling
Feeling small in front of her fans.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The one thing that kind of throws me is her choice of makeup for Rachel. She has these huge red lips that look almost exactly like the old wax lips candy<\/a>. I assume it\u2019s supposed to look like collagen injections and represents Rachel\u2019s need to hold onto the past to try to remain relevant, but it\u2019s kind of distracting. Especially in closeups where you can see that the top of the lip isn\u2019t even connected to her face. Even so, the odd lips do play into a comedic tone which seems intentional.<\/p>\n

The story itself is really quite sad, but the overall tone is darkly comedic. Some of the comedy is subtle, like the awkwardness of creepy fan interactions, but at other the times the comedy is very overt. Even more than being a horror short, <\/span>Conventional <\/span><\/i>is a black comedy. For me, I found it kind of hard to laugh. I cringed more than anything because I couldn\u2019t help but think of the next convention I\u2019ll go to, trying to avoid eye contact with the people that don\u2019t have any fans at their tables because I feel bad about not buying a picture.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Rachel
Rachel is not doing well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

RATING<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

6\u00a0–\u00a0Pretty Good<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/code><\/p>\n

I recommend that big fans of horror, especially fans who have gone to conventions, give <\/span>Conventional<\/span><\/i> a watch. There will be enough that rings true to keep you entertained. Also, at around nine minutes, even if you don\u2019t like it you didn\u2019t waste very much time.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DETAILS<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Title: Conventional<\/em>
\nYear:\u00a02015
\nDirector: Karen Gillan
\nWriter: Karen Gillan
\nFeatured Cast:\u00a0Karen Gillan, James Ransone, Matty Cardarople, Lara Sebastian, Michael May, Ryan Turek
\nRun Time: 9\u00a0minutes<\/p>\n

Availability:\u00a0Watch online at Fun Size Horror<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conventional is about the breakdown of a faded star that was never that bright to begin with. Is it scary or just sad?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442,5],"tags":[286,284,287,106,289,288,290,291,285],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-review","category-review","tag-black-comedy","tag-conventional","tag-james-ransone","tag-karen-gillan","tag-lara-sebastian","tag-matty-cardarople","tag-michael-may","tag-ryan-turek","tag-short"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":583,"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}