I heard everyone talking about how weird the short films were, but I’m not sure I expected this at all. I found the combination of sound and narrative to be extremely dark and creepy. Despite the lack of words I got that same feeling I often get if I somehow get stuck watching a horror film (I do NOT watch horror films. Ever).
I watched the films in the correct order, and from the very beginning I was mesmerized. The sounds of water dripping in a dark hallway or room were particularly gripping in the first film, but then the Bible robot seemed so panicked when he first knocked on the door. A few seconds later he was dead with a knife in the back, and the first killer (torturing the hanging robot) doesn’t seem so bad as the shadow of another killer overtakes him.
Overall I found these movies to be dark, yet incredibly rich with narrative, and the filming was extremely well done to get across such strong emotion in such a short time. The audience can feel for the blind robot’s naivety in the second film when the dog steals his cane, and in the end he can’t even see the dead stabbed robot or the two hanging robots on the hall. It was a very strong narrative, especially in the order that I viewed the films, and after three or four views each I finally felt like I was starting to understand them.
Oh and props to the responsive design of the studioAKA website!