Grimshader

HD video, 16:56, 2022

 

The film follows a limbo-like car journey through a murky hebridean night as our driver attempts to reconcile his deteriorating work-life balance with the growing strain it takes on his fragile psyche.

Tasked with a vague but bizarrely urgent midnight errand by his domineering and monstrous manager, Bruce Carmichael, his odyssey spirals into a hermetic internal rant on power relations, wage servitude, and spent agency. The scenery he passes begin to subtly shift as increasingly violent events and calamities manifest on the side of the road mirroring his disorientation. The journey takes on a looping limbo-esque quality, literally going around in circles.

A voiceover unfolds in the form of an official complaints letter, dictated—perhaps never sent—by the protagonist. In it, he attempts to articulate the unreasonable demands placed upon him by Carmichael, his many grievances taking on a paranoid, obsessive tone. Is the boss really such a bad egg? or is the situation more ambiguous? What is the inquiry into the Fusion City order? The reading of the letter becomes both confession and accusation, revealing more about his unraveling state than the grievances it attempts to bring to light.

As the film progresses, the narrator's grip on reality grows increasingly uncertain. The boundaries blur, and the errand’s true nature becomes elusive. What begins as a simple task reveals deeper  undercurrents, culminating in a confrontation with something ancient and forgotten—a reckoning not just with personal demons, but with a long forgotten, perhaps even fabricated, past.

 

Direction, Animation, Story, Editing and Sound Design:

Rustan Söderling

 

Monologue Script and Story:
Duncan Drury

 

Voice-over:
Ken Drury