Rating: ★★★★★

It’s that time of the week again! Sorry this review wasn’t posted yesterday, I’m going to blame the heatwave and the fact England are through to the semi-finals for why I was so distracted…

This week I wanted to showcase one of my favourite short films: Abe. I remember watching this back at University and being completely stunned by how amazing it was. The seven minute sci-fi short by Rob McLellan explores a robot who becomes self aware, with truly horrible results. This sentence alone was enough to grab my interest.

Something that really impressed me about this short film was the special effects. When you’re watching Abe, you start to believe that the robot is really there in the scene and he’s not added in during post-production. I was lucky enough to see before/after VFX footage as kindly provided by Rob McLellan, and the end results are staggering.

Abe himself is utterly terrifying in a cold, monotonous way. Yet strangely enough, we almost feel sorry for him despite his horrendous actions. Though he’s inhuman, he’s a complex antagonist that seems to be feeling some conflicting emotions that he does not understand. Abe is the only one who speaks during the film, so it’s one big monologue, but it doesn’t get boring at all. Voice actor Sam Hoare perfectly encapsulates an emotionless, well-spoken robotic voice that has very chilling undertones to it. I really enjoyed the dialogue in Abe, and thought the screenwriting was perfect throughout.

Abe is a chilling sci-fi/horror film about the dangers of self awareness within robots, and how things can rapidly spiral out of control when they begin to question their own programming. It’s pretty obvious how things are going to play out, but that doesn’t stop it from being a very compelling, intense indie short.

You can follow director Rob McLellan on , and watch Abe at the link below: