A mother (Rebecca Flinn) and her young daughter (Dani Tiernan) settle in for a game night at home with a dusty old board game called “Your Date Is Here.” Pizza’s on the way, mom’s making drinks, and the game is probably going to kill them both.
This new short film from writer/directors Zak White and Todd Spence utilizes the same clever angles to create tension and scares as their FaceTime horror Where Is It, but Your Date Is Here offers a little more information on its characters. It’s not overly anxious to get to the punchline, which allows the hairs to stand up on the back of your neck and stay there.
Turns out you really don’t want to get The Dweeb as your date.
The star here is the board game, which was designed to retro perfection to mimic Mystery Date as handled by eager pre-teens and worn down by moths in the back of the dark closet. Its grimy door with its curvy plastic question mark is an amazing icon for piquing a fearful curiosity, and even when they show what’s behind it, Your Date Is Here hangs on to its bigger revelations, not so much to go in a surprising direction, but definitely to place the big scares at unexpected moments.
This played at Fantastic Fest last year, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a tidy, frightful riff in a fun package. There’s a horrific-looking supernatural monster, and the little girl’s last line is deeply unsettling. Does anyone know what happened to grandma when she played?
Images: Midnight Video
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