When Darkness Falls / The Best of Care

Director(s): Jeff London
Writer(s): Jeff London
Producer(s): Jeff London
Starring: Mike Dolan, Matt Austin, Ron Petronicolos

In "When Darkness Falls", Kevin, a manizing prankster invites his most recent boy toy, Danny, to his parent's summer home in the woods. Danny, the antithesis of Kevin, is a fearful, sweet, one-man guy naive to the likes of Kevin and his friends. Kevin gets a kick out of scaring Danny about the local folklore surrounding his house and the zombies that supposedly roam the adjacent cemetery. When darkness falls, noises outside the house begin to scare the two shitless. Even after Kevin's friends reveal they were behind the creepy happenings, things continue down a scary spiral revealing the true story of the zombies that wander the night.

An Establishing shot! Finally. The filmmaker, Jeff London, does a superb shot of setting the scene. Just when you think the movie will take place in this lush, green haven from the city, London flashes the creepy cemetery briefly, creating an eery sense of suspense and fear. It is in small instances like this that London is able to create actual fear in viewers with a subject matter that would otherwise seem very kitsch. Zombies are hard to do and pull off well. Although their presence in the film is brief and limited, the zombie aspect was pulled off very well and rather classy avoiding the cheese and camp that comes with the genre. The film had just the right amount of the paranormal before ending, making this short a good recommendation for a night in with the boys. The acting, thought stunted and stalled in many scenes, definitely felt natural. There was one scene when one character asked the other two characters if they had cell phones three times. And their response to him was the same all three times 'There is no signal/service". Three times is definitely way too much. We got the point after the first.

Aside from "Hellbent" and the Here! TV dramas "The Lair" and "Dante's Cove", queer horror is rarely done. It seems that queer horror could be a definite expanding genre. It provides a refreshing change to the general plots of normal queer films usually dealing with coming of age, coming out, or finding that someone while still dealing with self-identity. in horror films, a character hardly has time to come out and find himself when an axe wielding villain is on his tail trying to get some tail. Thus you find in queer cinema, gay characters already know who they are, what their stance is in life, and only have one major concern: getting out of the situation alive.

In "The Best of Care", Jeff London works his suspenseful magic once again and creates tension between a crotchety, dying man and his partner who faithfully cares for him, day after day after day after day. Mike Dolan stars again as Billy, the loyal but annoyed partner trying to enjoy life while his partner bitches about his meds. When the constant complaining pushes Billy over the edge, he kills his partner. Just when Billy thinks his problems are over, things start to get eery and his problems get worse than it can possibly get.

Once again, London has a knack for creating suspense and building tension. His opening shot alone with the eery sound of a running shower spooks viewers before the plot is even developed. Sure the sound mixing could have been better and the lighting was dark in some scenes, but the fact remains that the film is a noble if not successful attempt at queer horror inspite any production flaws. The juxtaposition of Dolan in the previous film to this film shows the range of Dolan's acting ability. Coming in under 25 minutes, this short is something worth the time it takes.