Sundance 2022 Film Festival – Written and directed by Alex Fofondoff, the short film, While Mortals Sleep, was a bundle of pleasant surprises. Screening as part of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival lineup that is full of shocking and experimental short films, While Mortals Sleep still managed to stand out with riveting story writing and hypnotic visuals.

A cold case novelist named Susan (Carie Kawa) arrives at her friend’s seemingly empty house. Attempting to escape a story gone bad, Susan is startled to find Eddy (Will Brill) a strange man digging in her friend’s backyard, along with his girlfriend Abby (Grace Morrison) — a couple who claim to watch the house while the friends are away. After further conversation, Susan finds that the couple is there for ulterior reasons, and they are not alone.

While Mortals Sleep is a 14-minute roller coaster ride that speeds along attractions of mystery, supernatural intrigue, and cult horror goodness. From beginning to end, the musical score filled me with tension from its many sustained ominous tones that were subtle but struck up an atmosphere of discordance, and from the use of instruments such as gongs to go play up a religious atmosphere as the film descended into the cult-horror territory.

While Mortals Sleep goes on to play with sound, using whistling, bubbling, baby cries, and other things that might seem wholesome in a different environment as weapons that pierce the ear and signal more sinister happenings to come. The heightening tensions escalate to an unexpected turn in the tone and genre of the film, where at first one may think they are watching a murder mystery, with the addition of one single and small character to the story, the film turns on its head and becomes hypnotically grotesque and horrifying.

While Mortals Sleep is a sleeper hit! The visuals of the film began suspiciously wholesome-looking which was a nice juxtaposition to the tense atmosphere being created aurally. Once the film escalated into supernatural madness, the viewing became all the more satisfying, as it was complete with one of the most shocking creature feature reveals out of a short film that I can remember.

7.75 Out of 10