I won’t lie to you — not all of the sci-fi short films that Oats Studios produces are fantastic. Writer-Director Neill Blomkamp’s cutting-edge online creative project does produce its share of duds. But when it’s good, it’s very, very good, and “Adam” is proof of that.
Like Blomkamp’s “Rakka” and “Firebase” before it, “Adam” is an unfinished serialized tale that mixes raw emotion and disturbing imagery with hints of brilliance — all set within a detailed and truly creative sci-fi universe. I highly recommend it.
Oats Studios dropped its newest science fiction – horror short film yesterday, and it’s pretty damned good. “ZYGOTE” follows (an all grown up!) Dakota Fanning and Jose Pablo Cantillo as they try to escape an inspired and truly horrifying monster. (Cantillo was none other than Martinez a few seasons ago on “The Walking Dead.” )
My enjoyment here was hampered just a little with some problems I had with the short film’s audio … I tried watching this both with my laptop’s speakers and with my headphones, and I found the early dialogue a little difficult to hear either way. (I’m guessing the problem is only mine.)
Nevertheless, this was a pretty decent short film, taking writer-director Neill Blomkamp’s zeal for body horror to a new level. (I get the sense that Blomkamp watched a lot of David Cronenberg growing up.)
Fans of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” should be pleased. Check it out below.
Writer-director Neill Blomkamp (who brought us 2009’s “District 9” and who wanted to bring us a fifth “Alien” installment) is currently releasing a series of sci-fi short films via his “Oats Studios” channel on Youtube. There have been four released so far, with a fifth, “ZYGOTE,” scheduled for release today.
The two to which I’ve linked below, “Firebase” and “Rakka,” are fantastic. They’re both military science fiction, they’ve both got lots of gore and great special effects, and they both show Blomkamp’s trademark predilection for body horror.
They’re both incredibly dark stories, too. “Firebase” is disturbing; “Rakka” is downright horrifying. (The Eiffel Tower scene … yeesh.) It might make you smile, though, to see none other than Sigourney Weaver fighting alien invaders.
If “Firebase” doesn’t make much sense to you, try not to let it hamper your enjoyment of it. (The short’s reveal shows us that many of these disparate story elements actually aren’t supposed to make much logical sense, considering their cause.) And you should know ahead of time that both of these short films should serve as prologues for sequels or longer tales. (Maybe Blomkamp is planning their denouements in subsequent shorts?)
I was so befuddled by “Firebase” at first that I wound up turning it off and then returning to it later. I still think that its writing could be cleaned up a bit. It’s definitely out there, and strays from science fiction into fantasy and … maybe even theology. It was “Firebase,” however, that stayed with me and really got under my skin — much more than the more straightforward invasion horror story, “Rakka.”
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 