Smoking Kills Review
Smoking Kills is a 2021 short film directed by Steven Luchel.
A quiet yet chilling ending underpins this simple and quick short film, Smoking Kills is sure to leave an icy shiver down your spine.
There is no single way to really encapsulate this piece without taking into account the ending, which will not be spoiled here but is the very thing that changes the dynamic of the entire story until that point.
It is a dark cautionary tale of the way in which a simple selfish act can change everything in a few quick minutes.
At the same time the film almost feels like a long-lost commercial for the Truth movement we have here in America, which is not a slight against it but rather a showcase of the power of the story itself.
It makes the correct choice of leaving everything to our own imagination, which can usually be much more powerful than any amount of carnage we see on screen.
Shot in a stark black and white style, the dark mood is visually set but not set by the story proper. Things seem normal until they aren’t and it helps that the acting leads a pleasant air of believability to everything.
The scenes all feel claustrophobic and at no point to we really get a proper wide shot of the characters. It is this separation that doesn’t allow us to connect with anyone properly as separate people but lends an ambiguity so that we can transplant ourselves into that situation.
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