Jacob Cooney’s thriller short, Kreaster, opens in a tense warehouse standoff: gunfire echoes and evil forces respond with deadly results. As the chaos unfolds, a man in a suit—later identified as Mr. Beauchamp (Sal Rendino)—crumples to the ground, clutching at survival as certain death closes in. Somehow unseen, Beauchamp escapes alive while everyone else around him perishes.
Mr. Beauchamp, the sole survivor of the decimated town of Tibideaux, Louisiana, sits stunned under interrogation by a military officer (Greg Nutcher) and civilian paranormal researcher (Laura Poe). They’re insisting on answers about the total disappearance of the town’s population, as no one has survived from previous attacks on other towns. He recounts that the creatures are shapeshifters and that he was caught unawares when the aliens attacked his family.
“Gunfire echoes and evil forces respond with deadly results…”
Kreaster is all about the performance of Sal Rendino as Mr. Beauchamp. He’s a man who has gone through great trauma, and when you look into his eyes, it’s all about processing—processing the events that took his family and friends and grappling with the interrogation by the military. Let’s be honest…can you fully trust the military?
What director Jacob Cooney does so well is put us in a dangerous environment, tell a dangerous tale, and lead to a dangerous result. Cooney harnesses the power of what is unseen to tell a very big story with a small budget and limited production resources.
Kreaster leaves us with this adage: survival does not equal safety. Is there something more sinister at play? In the end, the real danger may lie in who controls the story, and what they choose to do with it.
"…Cooney harnesses the power of what is unseen..."
