Fantasia International Film Festival 2023 – Writer/director Shane Bannon’s short The Perfect Place to Cry is one of those films that toys with expectations. You have a young woman, Lyla (Celina Bernstein) sobbing, while alone in her car at night near the woods. When a stranger emerges from the forest, every horror red flag goes off. Lyla should be mincemeat, but this film isn’t interested in following that traditional narrative.

Lyla is alone, we find out, because her boyfriend broke up with her. She just wants some time to process it, and for whatever reason, she picks a spot near the woods at night. She soon witnesses a shirtless and bloody young man, Colin (Jesse Howland), emerge, followed by the stranger, played by Kevin Owyang. It’s unclear what Colin and the stranger, listed as Dan, are doing there. Without spoiling anything, I will say that this short isn’t without one shocking scene.

However, after that, this film subverts every expectation. For instance, no one talks until about the halfway point, once Dan approaches the car and he and Lyla have a very brief conversations about why she’s crying. Prior to that, there are plenty of tense moments, like when Dan draws closer and closer, shining the flashlight in the car and hand motioning for her to lower the window. Yet, the film doesn’t go where you think it’s going to go from there. It all leads to an ending that’s ambiguous, yet impactful. Bernstein, meanwhile, does a fine job conveying fear largely through her panicked facial expressions and body language. It’s a good performance with very few words spoken.

Overall, The Perfect Place to Cry is unsettling, eerie, and a bit unconventional. As a short, it left me wanting a whole lot more. Let’s hope there are plans to turn this into a feature. Bannon winds up the tension before taking the viewer down a totally different path. He knows genre conventions well and how to carve out his own path.

8 Out of 10