PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Darren Lynn Bousman, the director behind the first three Saw sequels, The Devil’s Carnival (2012) and the newly released Abattoir, has donned his Producer’s hat for the upcoming horror short, SockMonster. Written, produced and directed by #15SecondScare’s Wesley Alley, this four minute short finally offers the world an answer for that eternal question… What really happens to all of those lost socks in the dryer? And let me tell you, the explanation is not one that will help you sleep at night.
SockMonster stars Jason Voorhees himself, Derek Mears, as well as Briana Evigan (Sorority Row 2009, The Devil’s Carnival 2012) and AnaSofia Bianchi (Hide and Seek 2018). Along with Bousman and Alley, this Three Tales Production was produced by Amanda Markowitz (The Bold and The Beautiful TV series) along with The Voices’ (2018) Bradley Fowler and Victoria Matlock. The score was composed by Robert Reider (The Devil’s Waltz 2016) while the special monster FX were coordinated by Aaron Insley (The Outer Wild 2018). Last Shift’s (2014) Austin Schmidt shot the film with a fine eye for the dramatic, and editor Curtis Schultz (The Summoning 2014) took what could have been a loose 30 second short and stretched it into a highly dramatic slow burn that ratcheted up the tension right up until the very end.
SockMonster starts off with a clearly distressed young woman (Evigan) frantically pacing around what appears to be a basement laundry room. She’s surrounded by dusty boxes, dirty dishes, a nest of blankets and a sweet little ragdoll left discarded on the floor. Dominating the scene are two industrial sized dryers. As time passes, the woman goes from depressed to screaming to agitated to completely despondent. Her thin hands flutter around like birds as she snubs out yet another cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and lifts a trembling glass of whiskey to her lips. Suddenly, a noise from the dryers distracts her. From inside the machine, a young girl (Bianchi) calls out, “Mommy!” Her terrified face appears in the dryer’s glass window, her tiny fists banging against the glass.
I don’t know if any of you have ever thought about climbing into a dryer, but the idea of cramming my body into that tiny, cheerless, awkward space through a doorway the size and shape of a porthole sets off a claustrophobia I didn’t even know I had. The fact that the little girl was forced, most likely kicking and screaming, her arms and legs flailing and banging against the unforgiving stainless steel appliance, makes my throat close up. Not only is the dryer apathetic toward her plight, but it also has an agenda of its own. Over the years, this dryer – and every dryer in the world, gremlins or no – has harvested one out of every pair of socks that it has ever been asked to dry, and what it does with those socks is nothing short of terrifying and altogether bloodthirsty.
I know what you’re thinking. SockMonster sounds like it should be a horror comedy in the same vein as Beetlejuice (1988) or Ghostbusters (1984). It seems like it should be silly, but it’s not. The short is tense, surreal and riveting. Yes, it does have a slight wisp of whimsy (mostly in the SockMonster (Mears) himself), but the main focus of the short is bloody and terrible. This creature is savage, sadistic and sanguinary, despite the fact that it’s made up of Hanes tube socks and little pink and purple lipstick socks. SockMonster proves beyond a reasonable doubt that even the most mundane things in this world can be terrifying.
Final Thoughts
SockMonster is a simple yet very effective short that’s perfectly pieced together by director Wesley Alley, cinematographer Austin Schmidt, editor Curtis Schultz and the gorgeous Briana Evigan. What a tight, suspenseful, eerie piece of film this is. The short is about to hit the festival circuit, so keep your eyes peeled for upcoming announcements from their Instagram page as well as the film’s website.
