Annie (Arianna Ortiz) is staying with her Aunt (Rose Iuro-Damon) while she recovers from a rough surgery. The wound on her stomach is so large that it can’t be sewn up with stitches, and must be cleaned and treated daily as it drains and recovers on its own. To this end comes Nurse Ivan (Earle Monroe), hired to make sure that Annie recovers swiftly and safely. He’s kind, gentle and exactly what you would expect a home nurse in a coastal town to look and act like. He’s also the unfortunate victim when, while cleaning the wound one day, the wound decides to attack him.
David Garrett’s short film, The Wound, knows how to play with its audience, and is the type of short where you can’t help but squirm in your seat. Maybe if the audience was full or nurses or surgeons, they’d be less inclined to want to look away, but the idea of taking a medical issue like Annie’s gaping wound and turning it into a horror film combines so many gross and uncomfortable elements together that, if you are to survive it, you’re probably retreating into your own coping mechanisms. Which means I laughed more than I probably should have, when I wasn’t going “ewwwww.”
My main criticism with The Wound is that I wasn’t on board with its ending. It delivers so much promise and mystery that I don’t know if I was expecting an explanation (doubtful) or at least some form of grander meaning for what was going on. It wraps up in such a way that it feels like the short just ran out of steam, or didn’t know how to end. It’s not one of those endings that s***s all over everything that came before it (I’m looking at you, Haute Tension), but it is the kind where you go, “So that’s it?”
Which is weird to say and feel, considering it ends on an epic image that somehow feels anti-climactic considering all that built up to it. It’s unfair to judge a film on where you think it could potentially be going, but it sets up some other elements that you wonder if something got discarded on the wayside, or if you might’ve missed something. Frankly, it’s not like I really have an idea of how it should’ve ended, I just can’t help but feel like there was something else it could’ve done.
Overall, though, The Wound has just the right amount of gruesome mixed with some dark humor. It lulls you in to its mystery, then ratchets up the stakes. I may not have liked how it wrapped up, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have an absolute blast getting to the end. Worth checking out if you like your short films good and bloody with an inappropriate chuckle or three.
This film was submitted for review through our Submission for Review system.
