Keep Your Distance + Flowers For The Dead Short Film Reviews

The Isolation Horrors is an anthology film Mother of Movies covered in early May 2020. Now Nicolai, MW Daniels & John Whitaker got together and made a nifty piece called KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. The artistic cinematography of the short is excellent. But what’s more, Keep Your Distance could very well be an official anthem short film for COVID-19. Secondly, Richard Markworth joined Whitaker for another low-budget slice of goodness with FLOWERS FOR THE DEAD. Let me take you through both of them. Best of all, you can watch them both right here on YouTube.

Keep You Distance, A Public Service Announcement

The movie was shot on an iPhone in London by the talented Nicolau Kornum who also came up with the idea. Kornum edited and directed Keep Your Distance, as well. Both feature music from one of the creators, John Whitaker from 1i2c whose discography is available on Bandcamp.

Keep Your Distance is shot in black and white and follows a man reading a newspaper that includes the rules around successful measures to keep yourself and everyone you know protected from COVID-19. Wearing a black hoodie and more importantly a mask, this guy is doing the right thing.

Before long another man stands directly behind him, certainly not 6 feet away and certainly not wearing a mask. He coughs, albeit into his elbow, but also sans mask before casually walking away.

Should You Wear a Mask?

Whatever your ‘stance’ on mask-wearing is, Keep Your Distance will give you a reason to pause. Perhaps that pause will only be for the 3-minutes it takes to watch this short film. There is so much debate from those who choose to ignore a fairly simple measure. Is it worth the conscious effort to go against the grain when this one thing lessens the chance of spreading a disease that has upended the world as we know it?

Keep Your Distance movie is short, but the message it sends encapsulating the frustration for the rest of us is strong.

Watch Keep Your Distance on YouTube

Flowers for the Dead

Flowers for the Dead commences with an excellent high-energy track as a young woman runs through a forest. The camera slowly pans up to a sign with a photo of the same girl, “missing.” We are then introduced to two guys, Peter, and George discussing their next big break. The woods where she was last seen just happen to be renowned as being the most haunted woods locals have ever heard of.

The AbottsWood Curse

With supernatural stories and movies being something everyone wants to see, these two fast-talking lads plan to monetize this missing girl’s story. Alongside the notorious Abbotswood curse, Peter plans on making this investigation his next lucrative social media-fueled extravaganza. As they talk about all the things they’ll be able to buy and the women they will attract once famous, the disappearance of Holly is slowly eked out. Overlays of footage of the woman’s final moments begin to unfold.

Little do they know something is menacing in the woods. As they set up to film deep within the heart of the forest, they have been seen. But is it the ghost of Holly or something much worse?

For more films about ghosts watch The Ghosts of Monday (Julien Sands) | Texas Trip A Carnival Of Ghosts Haunts Docu-Film or I’ll Take Your Dead next.

Flowers for the Dead runs for just over 26 minutes. Watch Flowers for the Dead below and leave a comment and a like on the video. Help support these indie filmmakers. Read another review of this short film by The Independent Horror Society.

• Flowers for the Dead stars: Aland Austen, Richard Markworth, Simon Pritchard, Emily Ayson, Chris Fenton, Alfie L. Fenton, and John Whitaker.
• Written and Directed by John Whitaker and Richard Markworth.

Watch Flowers for the Dead Free Horror Short Stories on YouTube

More short films from indie directors: Klink Klonk Klunk / Apprev / Fried Barry