A finance bro finds his date isn’t quite what she seems in Horace Oliver’s Love Bite, which screened at HollyShorts London Film Festival.
The premise of Horace Oliver’s horror short Love Bite is pretty straightforward. Your usual, kind of slimy finance guy Sebastian (Matthew James Ovens) is preying on women at a bar, setting his gaze on Mina (Alba Ramadani), a beautiful and mysterious woman having a drink by herself. He naturally invites Mina to his flat and goes as far as drugging her drink to get her to sleep with him.
This is where things take a slightly spoiler-y turn, which we wouldn’t dare to reveal. That being said, Love Bite does share some DNA with Joy Wilkinson’s 7 Keys, which is set for release in 2025, and Strange Darling, one of this year’s most exciting genre releases. All three films attempt to turn a familiar situation upside down in really exciting ways while never becoming preachy or dull.
Oliver’s short suffers from what I assume are budget issues. The bar at the beginning feels completely empty and fully lit, creating a strange sense that it is indeed a set rather than a real life location where these two characters would meet. Later on, a prosthetic is applied to a character that is more distracting than believable, making it near impossible to focus on anything but that for the rest of the film.
Read more: Short film review | Bill
There’s still a lot of fun to be had with Love Bite. It’s the kind of narrative that this writer will never get tired of and both Ovens and Ramadani deliver fine, if exaggerated performances. Oliver also demonstrates an excellent sense of storytelling and perhaps with more resources, Love Bite would have had more… well, bite.
Related Stories
- Short Film Review: Gardening
A woman tries to understand and come to terms with sexual assault in artist and filmmaker Sarah Beeby’s haunting animated short film.
It feels like we’re living through a particularly exciting time for animation. We’ve got beautiful animated films such as The Wild Robot, the Spider-Verse movies and Robot Dreams to mention a few. Artist and [...]
- Short film review | Where Are All The Gay Superheroes?
Two superheroes ask the eternal question: where are all the gay superheroes? Here’s our review of Tom Paul Martin’s short film which screened at HollyShorts London Film Festival.
Superheroes are all the rage today, but we’re still quite short on queer superheroes on the big screen. Deadpool loves to joke about being gay, but do we [...]
- Short film review | Twenty
A young, homeless ballet dancer gets an audition of a lifetime, but first she needs to find somewhere to sleep. Here’s our review of Twenty which screened as part of HollyShorts London Film Festival.
If you’ve never been to a dance audition, let me tell you what they’re like. You’re given a number and you’re surrounded [...]
- Short film review | Three Things We Won’t Talk About
A woman is left alone after her thoughtless, potentially cheating boyfriend leaves on a worktrip. Here’s our review of Three Things We Won’t Talk About, which played at HollyShorts London Film Festival.
We’ve all had a partner who refuses to replace the toilet roll after they use the final piece, leaves their hair in the sink [...]
- Short film review | Stillness
A photographer has promised to take photos of a family that has experienced stillbirth. Here’s our review of Stillness, which played at HollyShorts London Film Festival.
As a society, we’ve slowly begun to discuss postpartum depression and the traumatic experience that childbirth can be, but we’re still learning to talk about stillbirth. It’s incredibly difficult for [...]
