Teddy Review Review

Teddy is a 2020 short film written and directed by Justin Sulham. This film was screened for review as part of the Free Independent Film Weekend Fright Night 2021.

Starting out with a great opening long take, Teddy starts with a great introduction but ultimately misses a few too many steps the rest of the way through.

One of the biggest technical issues with this short film has to come from the audio department, which has a lot of pops between takes and in outdoor scenes loads of interference. It hampers a lot of the viewing experience throughout, unfortunately.

Further through the list of issues we have many takes that seem to either miss focus completely or that can’t quite seem to catch things sharply, leaving things tough to see.

Last, while the acting is serviceable here, it feels a bit still in places and the only real memorable character is our main villain, who does not utter any dialogue, but has a strong menacing screen presence.

While these technical missteps hold the short back, there are still a lot of excellent pieces to highlight here. For one, the opening long take is very well done with some great staging and solid camera work. There was a lot of care put into every detail of the scene, and it really starts things off strong.

Add to that the score of the film, which while at times was over the top, still had a great atmosphere to it that really did work, it is just that some visuals didn’t really match up to that energy.

This is a short that you really do want to enjoy and it feels like it wants you to enjoy it as well, but ultimately all the issues really bring the experience down. Teddy is obviously made by a team who has a love for all things horror, there are some great references sprinkled in for good measure here. There is a version of this that is a little faster paced and clear of audio issues that would be a crowd pleaser, but as it is right now, it is just a hard one to recommend.

This film was screened for review as part of the Free Independent Film Weekend Fright Night 2021.

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