Starring Nova Lux and Rebecca Gossett

Directed and written by Payton King

A woman suffering from insomnia (Nova Lux) has a new sleep aid suggested by a friend (Rebecca Gossett). It’s a noise, one that grants her sleep. But not peace.

Released for free via YouTube, Payton King’s short feature moves with the same velvet menace as insomnia itself. It’s a tight eight minutes, almost all in one location and almost all focused on Lux’s determined, resolute and increasingly desperate heroine. It’s a smart move, one that emphasizes the awful combination of space and tension that insomnia brings with it and makes the small scale and small budget a major asset. Cole Manning’s cinematography makes use of some wickedly smart angles to build menace and the monster’s first and last appearances especially are fantastically nasty. The final shot too is an absolute masterclass in how to do a lot with a little. It’s just Lux, in a very different location, doing something terrifying and it’s stunning.

I’ve been a big fan of Lux, best known to me via their incredible cosplay and skit work on TikTok, for a while. This is the first long ish form acting work I’ve seen from them and they’re excellent. The protagonist here is a woman who asks the right questions, makes the right moves and it almost never matters. You like them instantly and that makes everything they go through all the more tense. Gossett is great too, and lands one of the two best scares despite not being physically present on screen.

Verdict: Inventive, intense and wickedly clever this is why I love short movies. Check it out, especially if you’re a horror fan. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart