Ella and her friends take a weekend getaway to rural Australia to disconnect from their devices and reconnect with one another. However, an evil presence has other plans for them.
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Review by Julie Sheppard:
This riveting short, Sentient, taps into the concept that obsession with social media can cause people to mute their sentience, or ability to experience true human emotions and experiences.
The plot recounts a story about close friends launching into a getaway weekend as painful losses and truths are explored, with social media addiction being much of the culprit. As in classic horror, the lead protagonist is like the untouched virgin as she is “not on social media” and therefore is “not a threat” and is protected from harm.
The four main performers do justice to their places in the narrative, all delivering text in believable, conversational style, which serves as a foil to a zombie-like presence of characters once “infected” by AI. The pristine, modern home for the weekend escape is a perfect setting for this piece and makes the convincing gore seem even more graphic. The expert camera work helps create suspense and intensify the drama, as do the fitting musical choices, notably sombre keyboard for sad scenes and heavy rock during the wild party scene.
A viewer can glean a strong message of warning as the credits role. We sentient beings must steer clear of the dangers of sacrificing human connection to social media fixation, or risk losing those closest to us.
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