Summary
A mother and daughter, playing games in the forest. Somebody’s watching. Somebody’s waiting. If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a grim surprise.
But I wasn’t drawn to his posters (sorry, Tom) so much as a display of teddy bears surrounding a TV screen. The bears were all either grubby, taken apart and put back together or simply plain weird, and they drew my eye to the screen. I sat down, put on the headphones and forgot about my son for a few minutes.
Teddy Bears Picnic opens with a mother (Abby Miller) and daughter (Lorelei Winterfrost) playing games in the middle of a forest. Naturally, they get a little separated as they play: the wood is so compact and takes a lot of scrambling to catch each other up. Along the way, the mother finds a growing trail of creepy-looking clues. I shan’t give away what she finds at the end of that trail, but it is truly scary.
Similarly to Muil, I loved this short film for its cast and sinister atmosphere, which was made with sharp cinematography and a fitting score. I’m only aware of one flaw to Teddy Bears Picnic, but I’ll leave that until the end and tell you more about those good points.
The cast, for a start, is only three people. You may already know Abby Miller from Justified and The Sinner: she brings the same knowing, intimate presence to Teddy Bears Picnic in just a few minutes as I saw in The Sinner. Lorelei Winterfrost is new to me, though. No surprise: she was six years old when Teddy Bears Picnic was shot. She has been acting for years (stage and screen) and is also a model and dancer, attending the Stagecoach Performing Arts School in Twickenham: it would not surprise me if we see her in many more roles as she grows. The third member of the cast is Laurence R. Harvey, but I will not reveal what part he plays. If you are a horror aficionado, you may know his name from the main role in The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence); but I hadn’t realised he also appeared in children’s TV during the 1990s… the things you learn when writing reviews!
Teddy Bears Picnic was directed with very careful pacing so that only a little was revealed at a time. This can’t have been easy in just five minutes! It is Tom Hodge’s directorial debut, and he was aided by a great little crew. This included Sophie Galpin (freelance musician, and drummer for The Pins), who wrote and arranged the score; and James Fox, who led the cinematography (which was nominated for a festival award).
That kind of makes the film sound bigger than it is which leads me to that flaw I mentioned: Teddy Bears Picnic really should be much longer. Tom’s initial idea was for a “post-modern, character-driven horror film”, which will “take horror back to its earliest primal roots: the world of fairytales and nursery rhymes.” This short was essentially a proof-of-concept to show how such a style would work and to put his directorial savvy to the test. The short premiered at last year’s Frightfest in London and travelled to a number of other festivals since then. In the meantime Tom has been in discussion with a number of production companies about how to take it forward; the short is not available publicly (except at such events) until those plans are worked out.
If anyone reading this has a film production company looking for a new horror project, there’s a great one here just ready to run. Contact Thomas. In the meantime, watch out for Teddy Bears Picnic at festivals and – when in doubt – stay out of the woods.
Oh and I just remembered one other thing I really liked about the film, the last line of the credits:
Some Teddy Bears were clearly harmed in the making of this picture
