HollyShorts Special 11: Spilled Milk Review
“No use crying over spilled milk” – The Milk Man
As I’ve wandered out of my usual comfort zone in my coverage of some of the incredible films being screened at this year’s HollyShorts Film Festival running from August 13-23, I’m heading back to more familiar territory for this one.
I love horror movies. Always have, always will. But creative as that genre can be, there’s a lot of repetition of familiar tropes. I’m always looking for something new. Tell me a story I haven’t heard before. Execute that story with visuals I’m not expecting. In short, surprise me.
Spilled Milk piqued my curiosity from the synopsis with a story that is so simple, but writer/director Jared Leaf takes his concept and masterfully twists it into a horror film that is fiendishly entertaining, giving us a brand new evil horror villain that really deserves his own series of movies in The Milk Man (Jerry O’Connell).
In a summer blockbuster season where horror fans are eagerly anticipating Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man, Jared Leaf’s Milk Man gives him a run for his money, were this expanded to a feature length film, which it easily could be. Executive producer Jordan Peele might have found his next big project.
Spilled Milk explores the tragedy of the absconding deadbeat dads, who “went out to the store for some milk” and never returned to their families. This is how Trey Carver’s father deserted him and his mother. Trey (J. Alphonse Nicholson) has spent years looking for his absent father, just to show him what he has become. On an errand to literally get some milk one evening, he stops at the Beulah Mart where he sees and confronts his errant father Marcus (Rodney Van Johnson). But their conversation is interrupted by an old fashioned deceptively well-meaning and courteous Milk Man, picking up empty bottles. Realising that Trey and Marcus are father and son, the Milk Man suggests they have a celebratory drink of milk to mark the occasion. Trey discovers what really happens to those fathers who disappeared.
Spilled Milk is a masterpiece of short film making. But more than that, it’s an exercise in proving that a horror film can take place anywhere. It doesn’t need to be a gothic castle, a forest or a lonely road where isolation is the key. Horror has evolved to this stage, where even the confines of a convenience store with its harsh fluorescent lighting and shuffling shelf fillers can be an ideal setting. Just keep away from the black labelled Beulah Milk.
I’ve often wondered how long a horror movie needs to be to tell an effective tale with a backstory, main story with characters we can buy into and a memorable payoff. In this case, it turns out it’s around 13 minutes.
Rob Rating = 9