UK Indie filmmaker Darren Ward brings his vision of a serial killers' inner torment to the screen with the 10-minute short, Nightmares. Nightmares has been making the festival rounds, and has garnered such praise as to win 'Best Music Score' at the Cinema Edge Awards in the US earlier this year - so we figured it was about time we jumped in on the action.

It's really hard to critique a short such is this, especially when it turns out that those involved are seeking funding to turn it into feature length. However, there are a few things about Nightmares that struck me, and are definitely worth mentioning in such a small space.

During the brief running time, we're introduced to a nameless 'killer' who appears to be haunted by visions of his victims. He recounts two of his exploits while sitting in a dank room, trying to cope with his demons, chomping on an apple. The first victim was a hit; he was paid 7 grand to dispose of, so he shot him to death. The second was a young woman who walks in on him robbing her house, so he disposes of her as well, only to rape her while he's doing it. Nice guy, eh?

Some of what's here works, some of it doesn't, but Darren Ward shows that he has the talent on the technical side of things, if nothing else. The short easily looks good; it's well lit, edited and I can easily see why it won 'Best Music Score' at the Cinema Edge Awards. While the idea of a killer being tormented by his/her victims is nothing new, it's a concept that never fails to intrigue me. I'm thinking along the lines of Creepshow and Maniac as exemplary examples here. While Mr. Ward does a decent enough job of pulling off familiar subject matter, there are some characteristic inconsistencies that should be faced, before a feature length is attempted.

For example, the killers' motivations come across too random. In the first flashback scene, he's just a hit man trying to earn a buck. In the second flashback, he's robbing a young woman who happens to catch him up to no good, so he kills her. While both are cash motivated crimes, would he then be the type of killer to viciously rape the young woman who rained on his parade in the second flashback? Or would he either A) try to make a quick escape aborting his mission or B) kill her quick and easy out of necessity because he'd still want the money and anonymity? Even at 10-minutes, I don't know if I bought the character of the killer as a whole, which is really important in a film that is so dependant on said character to carry us through. Then, in the end, we find that he's killed his sister as well, because as children. she was given all the attention while he was left on the sidelines, being physically abused. Should we explore his childhood even more to understand what drives him, or is childhood abuse being introduced as a lazy excuse for his actions.

It may sound as if I'm coming down pretty hard here, but I'm not. I think that this short shows a lot of potential, and while I know that 10-minutes may not seem like enough time, I feel as though a few of these issues could have (and probably should have) been touched upon. I like the way the killers' inner demons were represented here and I'd like to see Mr. Ward explore this character even more. I think it'd be great if he'd be able to focus in more on the character himself, something along the lines of Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, while also focusing on how this particular killer deals with these uncontrollable haunted visions he's experiencing. I think it could work, and from what I've seen here, I think Mr. Ward could probably pull it off. I say stick with it.

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