Starring: Wolfgang Fiegl and April Fiegl
Director: Jacob Arbittier
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars
A young boy (Wolfgang Fiegl) is led away from a park playground and into darkness.
Burnt Mill Road has a thriving YouTube Channel that is full of the type of mini-horror films that have become Our Thing to cover in recent years here at Terror Titans. We've checked out their offerings on an infrequent basis, and we found them to be a bit erratic quality-wise, but there's been enough quality that we check out films when they show up in Recommended.
But this one is going to make us go back and take another look through their listings to see if we've missed any perfect, ghoulish gems.
"Playground" is one of the more terrifying films we've come across while selecting the line-up for this year's 31 Nights of Halloween. This film is so expertly done that the real terror hits when it ends. (I'll continue my comments below, so as to not spoil the film for those who check it out.)
Speaking of spoilers, I just realized the preview image for "Playground" is a bit of one. This goes double if you've been following the Burnt Mill Road channel, as it's actually part of a series featuring the same unseen camera operator, doing terrifying things.
Coming to this film cold (not having seen any of the previous entries in the series), I think it was a smart move on the part of Burnt Mill and Jacob Arbittier to so, because it hides where the story is going until the Big Reveal. I understand the benefit to letting audiences know that there's another bit of something they like through titles, but I think that can sometimes work against horror short-shorts like this one.
Based on production quality and acting alone (Wolfgang Fiegl is a very talented child actor!) this is a Eight of Ten Stars effort on our 0-10 scale. When little touches like the dedication at the beginning of the film and the credits listings on the YouTube page are added in, it gets a Nine rating that is bordering on a Ten! Those little touches make this film scarier when it's over, because it feels all-too-real.
We hope we're not front-loading the great films too much, but "Playground" may well be one of the best horror shorts you'll see this Halloween Season!
Creepy on many levels.
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