From the Drain (Short 1967)

From the Drain (Short 1967). 14m

“u0026#39;Transferu0026#39; was mediocre at best, but u0026#39;From the Drainu0026#39; is even less impressive. On a technical level, it is definitely superior in various respects, although it still has an amateurish quality to it, which sometimes works to a filmu0026#39;s advantage, but in this case it doesnu0026#39;t really do much to help or hurt the film. The main technical issue I have is the score, which could work if it wasnu0026#39;t playing throughout the literal entirety of this 12 minute short. Itu0026#39;s some relaxing acoustic soundtrack thatu0026#39;s alright for a minute and could work as an ironic accompaniment for this darkly comic short in small, spread out chunks, but instead itu0026#39;s just extended throughout the full 12 minutes of the film. It gets very annoying, especially since I actually made myself sit through this short twice in a row b/c on my first viewing, the copy I watched was so bad I couldnu0026#39;t really see much of what was going on. I suddenly saw there was another copy readily available to me that actually looked…acceptable, so I made myself sit through the same film all over again, which I had already decided was a tedious short with only a select few real merits (the editing is decent, particularly for a film of this obvious a small budget, and I like some of the camerawork, the color copy is well restored, the special effects are campy and kinda bad but theyu0026#39;re charming and fit the tone of the short, which isnu0026#39;t particularly serious nor should it really be, etc.), and itu0026#39;s shocking that this was made by the same man who, years later, would craft such legitimate masterpieces as u0026#39;Videodromeu0026#39;, u0026#39;The Flyu0026#39;, u0026#39;Naked Lunchu0026#39;, and so on.”