Film Review: MYSTERY BOX (2018) (Short Film)

MYSTERY BOX **** Sweden 2018 Dir: Sonny Laguna. 10 mins

A dialogue-free, scary short horror film from the talented director of recent genre-savvy features BLOOD RUNS COLD, WITHER and PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH. Lisa Henni (also in WITHER) is a young woman vacationing on a small island outside Stockholm who catches an aged metal box in her fishing net and ill-advisedly takes it back to her isolated cabin.
In an echo of an unforgettably alarming moment from AUDITION, something appears to be alive and moving inside the locked box and Henni’s repeated efforts to get rid of it fail. Stripped of exposition or extraneous characters, this well shot, almost one-hander ekes out a sense of escalating dread before a terrifying pay-off delivers an alarming variation on a classic moment from RINGU and a grinning, EC Comics-inspired figure of fear that might warrant expansion into a longer format.

Review by Steven West