Light

Directed by Ted Clarke

2024

Apollo Productions

A pulsating electronic sound provides a suitably eerie ambience to open new sci-fi horror thriller Light, written and directed by Ted Clarke and a production team made up of De Montfort University students.

After showing an ID card to a CCTV camera, we open with a security guard (River Sandhu) who is let into a building by his colleague (Harish Gogna) to begin a night shift at an office block.

When his silent colleague ignores his request to switch shifts and leaves, our protagonist is left to kill time. He does so by playing with a flashlight, drinking soft drinks and even play-acting by pretending to catch an imaginary intruder, such is his boredom during this long dull work.

His colleague however, informs him over the radio that there have been a number of power cuts at the building to look out for. And when one of the CCTV cameras goes down in an apparent white-out, the guard goes off to investigate.

Light begins well by setting up its scenario efficiently with visual cues and just a few lines of relevant dialogue. This is complemented with some great music from Thomas Pearce. His score is intense and serious which creates a suitable mood for a short that wants to create suspense and a sense of strangeness as this mystery deepens.

Our lead then arrives at a computer room which has the faulty camera, but discovers a glowing orb that gives off a blinding white light, before a group of monitors suddenly flicker into life. But it goes as soon as it has arrived and despite trying to wake his off-duty colleague over walk-talkie, he is none the wiser to the weird goings-on.

Light has a great concept for a short. With a limited time frame, an easily-filmed one-building location is a perfect setting for filmmakers’ often limited resources. What could do with a tweak, ironically, is the technical aspect around the lighting.

Too often it is dark and muggy. And although I get the vibe they are going for, you still need to cleverly create some illumination even in dark scenes. Often filmmakers can resort to a blue filter as a quick win, but here there are a number of shots where barely much can be seen at times.

The opening seems to suggest it’s clearly day outside too, so why not open the room blinds even. However, the lighting improves immensely in the film’s second half. Corridors, stairwell lights and good use of silhouettes give over a much better visual style whilst conveying the same tone. 

In a montage of quick cuts, there’s a suggestion of darker forces at work with one screen even showing a man running. I reckon it’s footage from the filmmaker’s previous short Run (our review). A cinematic universe perhaps? Intriguing.

As we creep towards the short's conclusion, further enquiries lead the guard outside to a huge ball of light and the revelation that his colleague may know much more about these unusual forces than we previously thought. 

Overall, Light is a well-paced and edited mystery short. A bit more care and attention to film lighting techniques would have been good, especially in a short whose main theme is centred around that concept. However, with an end that hints at some terrible consequences beyond the initial set-up and an enigmatic theme at its core,  Light shows that bar a few minor elements to improve these young filmmakers have a bright future indeed.

★★★

3 / 5

Mike Sales