A terrible act of fate puts two sets of couples in a situation where one set turns into the prey and the other, the predator.

That Night follows a married couple on a night out at a party. As the night carries on, things escalate and the situation becomes dire. Short films can convey entire stories and worlds in a relatively small amount of time thanks to writing and pacing. Does “That Night” deliver, or do we just fall prey to a missed opportunity?

We start with an exchange between neighbors followed by a rather long car ride with the married couple of the night. This sets the mood for the rest of the film, but not in the way intended. For starters, while the script itself isn’t inherently bad, the delivery of the dialog came off very stiff, which was only highlighted more by long pauses between lines. It was as if the actors were not comfortable in front of the camera.

Even from a technical standpoint, it is uneven at best. The audio mixing was skewed towards the soundtrack, meaning the background music was rather loud, however, the dialog was hard to hear to the point of missing entire lines. The cinematography suffers a similar fate of being uneven, some shots are underexposed while others are over saturated.     

The story as a whole is just okay and you could tell that the writer had a tale to tell. With a twenty-six minute run time, that chance was squandered with pointless plot threads, long lingering shots, as well as awkward character interactions. Ultimately, it would have benefited from trimming at least five minutes from the finished product. With more polish and experience I could see this being something entertaining. However, as it stands right now it is just there. Not the worst thing, but also not the best.