Work from your couch all day? Order dinner from your phone? “Stucco” might just make you rethink the vampire lifestyle we all get sucked into.
Have your own little horror tale locked away in a mental coffin? Let it out! Submit to the next Killer Shorts Horror Short Screenplay Competition.
The Plot
J is a young woman attempting to make a fresh start. Alone in her home, she goes about setting up a new life. Boxes strewn about, walls half painted, everything that comes with the just-moving-in experience. While attempting to hang a picture on the wall, J hammers a nail and punches a hole through the wall, a haunting presence for the remainder of the film. J can see it at night from bed, a singular eye with an unexplained spotlight trained on it, staring back at her.
As the film moves along we see J engaged in a process of shutting people out of her life, or at least her physical space, as completely as possible. An ex-boyfriend comes to the house demanding to speak in person and is ignored until he leaves. An appointment with her therapist is conducted via Skype, with said therapist urging her to begin making their regular visits in person. J agrees through a forced smile, her nonverbal communication crystal clear. Food is delivered to her door, but the person on the other side ringing the doorbell terrifies her. She develops a cough and even medicine cannot be procured in person.
Through all of this, the hole grows increasingly bizarre. Hair is seen dangling from the bottom. Strange sounds begin emanating from behind the wall in the middle of the night. Then, in an apparent dream, J sees a strange, fleshy appendage emerge from the hole, and takes it into her mouth. Subsequently her cough gets worse. The hole is now oozing brownish goop and growing larger, until it begins to crack.
In perhaps the most unsettling scene in the film, J, having set up a camera for security, sits in bed and watches footage of herself walking toward the wall in the middle of the night. She proceeds to pull an arm from her mouth, shoving it into the hole and laughing maniacally while she does so. The horror culminates in J retrieving a mallet and clubbing aside the wall, hole and all. Walking through this newly-made doorway, J finds herself in an ethereal realm within which is seated a hideous, Cronenbergian creature forming a throne of mangled flesh which beckons her forward. She is pulled toward it. Bloody hands reach for her. J struggles but is drawn forward, sits upon it, and is crowned with a horrible cap of skin and fingers and teeth. With one last effort she breaks free, takes up her mallet once more, and begins to smash the monster to pieces. The film ends with J standing in the sunshine of her driveway, mallet in hand. A woman on a dog walk stops to take a picture. J turns to see a huge hole in the wall of her house, which we assume she created herself. She exhales, and as in earlier in the film the slight smile on her face speaks volumes.
The Underbelly
From work to relationships to daily tasks like getting food or medicine for a cold, we increasingly have the option of being shut-ins. We don’t have to leave our personal kingdoms if we don’t want to. In “Stucco” we are treated to an examination of this reality. This is not healthy, and as sickeningly alluring as it can be at times, embracing this sickness only makes us sicker in other areas of our lives.
When the protagonist becomes terrified enough to fight back against this temptation she is confronted with its disgusting allure in a purified form. She alternates between resistance and acceptance, but finally does take a hammer to the bloody monster. Literally. The end of this confrontation, her reward, is to be outside in the sunlight for the first time in the film. Of course this leads to the immediate confrontation we all want to avoid; being seen, being judged. One woman with a dog and a phone can become the eyes of an untold hoard, all-seeing all-judging. The conclusion, however, hits with the force of that mallet. The alternative is much, much worse.
What Makes It Killer
The unsettling nod to body-horror classics of yesteryear is expertly handled, perfectly working its intended magic on the audience. The acting of of co-producer, director, writer, and star Janina Gavankar is fantastic, drawing you in and refusing to let go until the credits roll. Throw in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos from Debra Messing and Leslie Odom Jr., and you get a truly killer short film.
Watch it here:
Writers: Janina Gavankar & Russo Schelling
Directors: Janina Gavankar & Russo Schelling
Producers: Janina Gavankar & Snehal Patel
