Hell in a Handbasket

Today’s not a good day to have a bad day in writer/director Lee Chambers’ short film, Hell in a Handbasket. We find our solitary hero, Dale (Robert Bryn Mann), fixing a faulty gas compressor outside the Pathogenicity Research Base on the North Pole. The purpose of the base is to research and store all known forms of infectious diseases, including Sars, Ebola, Anthrax, and even COVID-19.

“…the research at the base is humanity’s only hope for survival...”

After a quick hydration break, Dale receives a call from Dr. Forester (Hoyt Richards) bearing terrible news that major cities worldwide have suddenly fallen and that the research at the base is humanity’s only hope for survival. A team is heading his way, and all Dale has to do is hold on for four hours. Of course, this sets off a Rube Goldberg series of events to prove Murphy’s Law is in full effect.

Hell in a Handbasket runs less than five minutes and offers a humorous and strange tale about not putting all of your eggs in one basket and that maybe humans weren’t meant to survive after all. Chambers does a fantastic job creating what seems like a remote base in the arctic. As a sort of sketch comedy, he has the timing down perfectly. It’s a very silly story. My favorite gag was how a vial of whiskey and a vial of urine look exactly the same. It’s short and funny; check it out.