THE HARROWING
Runtime: 05:00
Director: Brendan O'Neil
Theme: Apocalypse, Sci-Fi, Family, Aliens.
The plot of The Harrowing is pretty straightforward to grasp as the trope is commonly seen in Hollywood thrillers. However, the cerebral implications of the central conflict is one you would have to look deeper to absorb.
The film opens with a mother stumbling upon an online news report of invading aliens in multiple cities across the globe. The events that follows after that tells first of all of the depth of human psychological reach in moments of crises and also the uniquely different ways we can react to something we don't understand yet our existence depends upon how much we can learn of it within a dangerously short time.
Again, while the general concept of the film is perhaps overused in the cinema space, one cannot fail to be impressed by the fantastic piece of acting work put in by the cast, especially the little boy. We desperately hope we would be seeing more of them in big and small screens in the near future. Plenty credit to the director too for being able to load so much cinematic takeaways within such short runtime without leaving too many open ended questions, rather, leaving us with a sentimental task as the credit rolls.
We rate this film 6/10
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Brendan O'Neil is a Birmingham, UK based late entrant to the film and TV industry who has been been selected for 2 regional, 3 national and 2 international talent schemes since 2008.
He's been highly proactive in learning about the industry and developing my contacts and network both nationally and internationally.
Some highlights
* The Harrowing has been shortlisted for the Performance Insurance Short Film competition 2023 in the Best Short Short category
* Stowe Story Labs Fellowship Finalist 2021
* My short animation script Love & The Divil was one of just six selected in the Best Short Script category for the Animafilm International Film Festival in October 2020.
* Birds Eye View's Filmonomics 5 scheme graduate 2018
* My live action short script Legion was a "Very, very close second" out of 350+ in the UK wide Script 2 Screen competition 2018. This competition had judges from the BBC and Creative England.
* Creator and curator of 6 of the Best Fest, January 2017 – A celebration of 6 new films by British women at The Mockingbird Cinema, Birmingham.
* Winner Best Super Short. Sci-Cine Film Festival 2016.
* Overall winner of the UK Parliamentary Film The House competition March 2015 for Around Again. A £900 budget war film made in just 48 hours with a cast and crew of 50.
