A man is watching television, annoyed at the televangelist trying to get cash out of the audience, when his watching is interrupted by a knock at the door. Answering the door, our hero’s mood changes quickly from annoyance to shock and fear. Waiting for him are two surprisingly menacing men, armed with the Word of God in one hand and something entirely different in the other.
Brian Hatfield’s short film The Bible Boys is an absurd, cartoonish short film that got me laughing hard (no pun intended). I really didn’t know where it was going to go once that front door was opened, and I’d never would’ve guessed what winds up happening. Yet another reason to hide from door-to-door religious fanatics.
And is this actually shot on film!?! It looks like it was shot on black-and-white 16mm, and the audio definitely boosts that vibe. If it wasn’t shot on film, they somehow captured that look better than most films that try to ape it. Regardless, I really dig the way it looks and sounds.
While the short is only three minutes long, and it’s a predominantly funny three minutes, I’d hazard to say it could lose about 20-30 seconds and be even funnier. Once the main joke gets going, the film gets hilarious fast, peaks, but then keeps going with the joke. While I’m all for funny turning uncomfortable turning back to funny, it never makes the final transition. Had the joke hit, let the silliness peak and then move on immediately, like getting struck by absurdist lightning, it’d have more impact on the audience. As of right now, it’s just a little too much of a shockingly good thing.
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