Short films are an important stepping-stone in the filmmaking process. Not only does it mark a jump-off point for ambitious directors to help them hone their craft, its more streamlined and limited time frame gives people a chance to try something they might usually not. With Remote, Toronto based filmmaker Marc Roussel has delivered a clever idea which might not have worked had it run longer than the nineteen-minutes it does but manages to draw you in thanks to the fact it gets in, provides some okay suspense due to the film's voyeuristic nature, and gets out.

Matt Reid (Ron Basch) is a pretty normal guy who's going through a divorce and has just come home to spend the evening alone while a winter storm is threatening to arrive outside. While checking his mail he comes across a bland looking letter which, when opened, contains a simple Polaroid picture of him holding a laptop up with the current date on it. Mildly confused by it, he decides to watch some television, which seems to be knocked out by the weather, as he is greeted by static.

Not long after that the picture begins to flicker and he's looking in on the living room of a young woman. But things get freakier when it turns out they are not only able see each other, but can communicate as well. After finding out her name is Justine (Sarah Silverthorne), Matt soon discovers that not only does she live at the same address but that she's in 1978 and he's in 2008.

Offering to see where she'll be in the future, Matt does a quick Internet search for her only to find that she's going to be killed and that this is the exact date of her death. It's here that Roussel throws in a few twists, gives the film a few tense moments as Matt watches the killer stalk Justine and is helpless to do anything, and brings things to a generally satisfying conclusion.

The idea of using a common television as a connecting device is certainly a good one when you consider just how much time most of us spend staring at it and even though Roussel does get a little too fancy with his "past affecting the future and vice versa" twists. I'm pretty sure things would've gotten either silly or convoluted had this been feature length but in this bite-size package I walked away with no real complaints.

With an unknown cast and writer-director with a resume filled with assistant editor jobs (like on such DTV drivel as both sequels to The Skulls), Remote is the kind of story perfect for the short format. Basch and Silverthorne are acceptable in the leads and never came across as "fake" like a lot of amateur actors do and Roussel keeps things on a focused path making it an accessible effort that would be right at home as part of a compilation of genre shorts like what Fangoria was doing with their Blood Drive series.

Visit Red Sneakers Media for more info. (Chris Hartley, 6/29/09)

Directed By: Marc Roussel.
Written By: Marc Roussel.

Starring: Ron Basch, Sarah Silverthorne, George Komorowski, Peter Racanelli.