WHERE SOCKS GO

I’m the kind of guy who has always been seriously skeezed out by public laundromats. Maybe I’m just a spoiled brat who’s almost always had a washer and dryer at home, but when I’ve ventured out with a pocketful of coins to the local wash ‘n dry, it’s always made me uncomfortable. Rarely are laundromats in good areas and they’re always swampy and sticky. It feels like a weird third world country in there and that’s no place to be folding your undies in front of strangers. But they’re a necessity and most of us have had to deal with them. Short filmmaker Jesse Dillon has done the unimaginable and made laundromats even more creepy in his surreal horror/comedy short film “Where Socks Go.” While the film manages to be extremely weird, somewhat funny and really gross, at the end of the day, it suffers the same fate as many shorts in that it’s just too long.

In the film we meet Alan (Martin Pfefferkorn Michael Tyrell) and Bridgette (Maria Rusolo), a couple doing their laundry. Alan begins to wonder aloud one of life’s eternal questions: where do those singular socks go when we lose them? As if summoning a genie from a bottle a freaky homeless man named Klaus (Michael Tyrell Martin Pfefferkorn) appears claiming he knows where they go and, if Alan and Bridgette want the answer, they should meet him in the park later that night. Intrigued by this scary man and undoubtedly plagued by the eternal question of missing sock location, Alan eventually lets his curiosity get the best of him and he’s soon down the rabbit hole.  “Where Socks Go” a mish-mash of weirdness that has flashes that grab you but, ultimately, drag on like a cycle of laundry that never seems to dry.

Director Jesse Dillon makes the most out of 2-3 simple locations and has a good eye for lighting and color. He also manages some cool, gross and slimy practical effects that serve the film well. I also was keen on the sound design which, if I’m not mistaken, is primarily laundry sounds even when the action isn’t in a laundromat.

The issue with “Where Do Socks Go” is that it is at its best when it’s delving into a surreal nightmare but, when it’s not, it’s just not that interesting. The editing could use some tightening in terms of keeping the narrative moving along and getting us into scenes quicker. The acting is solid across the board and I admire Dillon’s creativity, I just wish the film was about ten minutes shorter than its current runtime.

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