This short lesbian erotic thriller will catch you by surprise.
When a young girl attempts to shoplift an old blind box figure from a collectible store, the shopkeeper’s seductive wife takes an interest in her.
Heather Landsman has given us a sexually charged and very direct glimpse into a young woman’s attempt at shoplifting and the punishment she receives when caught.
In today’s climate with reports of heavy shoplifting coming out of places like California due to the dispensation of criminal charges for shoplifting under $4000, this little short film strikes right at the heart of this petty crime.
The age old concept of “do the crime, do the time” gets flipped on its head here and transformed into the more vulgar concept of ‘petty crime, huge fine’.
I didn’t think much of the story in the first half… And given this was a seven minute short film I did not expect much at all. However, when the protagonist is caught at the door before fleeing with her targeted item, And the store clerk, grabbing her before she could flea, I was awed, pulled into the story and had to know what would happen next. This is because of the sudden and unforeseen introduction of sexuality. It’s amazing how powerful it was to feel so consumed by a simple shot of a hand touching an inner thigh and slowly making its way north.
Perpetrator against helpless unsuspecting innocent victim. Does the shoplifter deserve this punishment? Absolutely not, but she did come into the store into the sales clerk’s domain and attempt to steal a valuable object that belonged to the store? Yes! So the store clerk takes full advantage of said shoplifter, and we are cut to a dark lit bedroom with flashes of a nightstand with pills/medicine on top, flickers of weird shots of both the perpetrator and the shoplifter (victim) and then the all powerful audio slowly trickles in, and we realize that the shoplifter is being touched erotically by the store/perpetrator presumably to climax. This presumption was confirmed with a final shot of a hand covered in liquid, resting near panties.
I honestly did not expect to have a lesbian erotic short film shown at fantastic Fest. It’s the first sexual themed story I’ve seen in 3 years attending fantastic fest, and it served as a reminder of the power that sexual themes can have when introduced either suspectingly or even unsuspectingly, such as with this story.
Heather Lance Mann managed to immerse us into the story so effectively that when the hand touched the thigh of the victim, her surprise was our surprise. And this was the power of the film. Huge congrats to Landsman for a job well done on this.
To negatively critique the film, I did wish the audio was better and did not enjoy the bleeding of white noise into various shots and the disparity of audio quality. With a seven minute film, one can’t expect perfection and why even spend the money to have perfect audio if the run time is only seven minutes anyways.
I did find the close-up shots of the lips to be a little misplaced or overkill, but then when the sexuality started happening, I understood this more as being necessary. I would’ve liked to see a bit more make-up… Or any make-up at all… however, I suppose again that Landsman’s choice of casting was INTENTIONALLY not to have beautifully “done up” attractive woman. It was unsuspecting when the sexual element was introduced because these women were not attractive and seemingly average looking. If they were gorgeous, then the viewer would have expected the sexuality to eventually unfold. It truly came out of nowhere and I thoroughly enjoyed how unsuspectingly the plot unfolded.