If you’re in the mood to see something that leaves you thinking “what the heck did I just watch” as you toss and turn trying to make sense of it while praising its quality imagery, The Barn is the kind of short film to give a chance for its amazing visuals, and in return it’ll turn you into an overthinking night owl.

In a nutshell, the short follows a guy being taunted around-the-clock by strange images between raw chicken, bloody guts, and many other bloody things. These visuals come to fruition once his sister disappears and he can’t seem to find her anywhere, except in his visions.

The Barn is full of allegories to the grief a person can go through from losing a loved one— from thinking about the past to finding comfort in activities that can help pass the time. However, an explicit symbology is used to reveal another aspect of the grief the brother’s going through. This mourning seems to be more for the loss of his sister’s physical presence than for her mysterious disappearance— he knows where she is, or so it seems. As the story progresses, clues are given like candy during Halloween night, but it is up to the viewer to piece it all together to understand the lives of the both characters. And, if that weren’t enough, when everything seems to point one way, another clue drops in the form of a horrifying transition between frames and takes you down the rabbit hole. And weirdly, you can’t get to hate the development of it because it’s a good twisted mystery told in minutes.

There’s no dialogue throughout the story so everything is left to the viewer’s interpretation of every strange dream, flashback and vision of the main character. It’s also a beautiful way to think of it as playing with the roots of cinema when film was silent and music was the only thing to give it the right atmosphere to freak or chill.

Written and directed by Damon Nash White, The Barn is here to make you think more than once in what you’ve seen. I could say that it serves as a lesson in social ethics to start questioning yourself and others when it comes to good and evil, and when you shouldn’t remain silent because remember that there are no stupid questions in life, only people who prefer to ignore what is happening in front of their eyes.

10 OUT OF 10 RAW CHICKENS