"Here There Be Monsters," But There Needs to Be More

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

The short horror film “Here There Be Monsters,” directed by Australian filmmaker Drew MacDonald, tells a simple, straightforward story. Elki (Savannah Foran-McDaniel), a bullied girl, falls asleep on a school bus and awakens inside the vehicle after the driver parks in the bus lot at the end of her shift.

Elki finds herself locked inside the bus. She cannot open the doors, and the windows open only a few inches. She is trapped. Worse yet, she realizes, when she looks out the window, there is a monster in the otherwise abandoned lot. She hides, but the monster, undeterred by her tactic, breaks a rear window. The girl hides in place, behind a seat, watching the monster's cloven hooves approach her position.

As the beast, a shaggy figure reminiscent of a Minotaur, comes nearer, Elki removes a pair of scissors from her book bag. Finally, she takes flight, throwing her shoulder repeatedly into the door at the front of the bus. With the monster in hot pursuit, she manages, at the last moment, to force open the doors and to flee.

The monster pursues, trapping her in a dead end, between abandoned buses and stacks of debris. She tries to scale a chain-link fence, but is unable to do so. As the beast closes in on her, she holds her scissors. Finally, she screams her defiance, and the scene shifts to the house of one or Elki's tormentors.

The bully steps outside her house to smoke, only to encounter Elki, who has not only survived her encounter with the monster, but, armed with her scissors, also manages to take revenge upon her tormentor by killing the aggressor.

The film accomplishes a lot in its approximately thirteen minutes and eleven seconds (which doesn't count the credits). Although the plot is simple and predictable and the theme rather moralistic, production values are first rate, as is Foran-McDaniel's acting.

The script is dialogue free, and her role calls mostly for her to project fear, which she does masterfully through her expressions, gestures, sobbing, and emoting. She is very believable, both as a victim of bullying and as a monster's quarry. Her petite size helps to suggest vulnerability. At the end of the film, she also conveys aggression; her emotionless stare, especially after the tears and fear she displayed throughout the rest of the film, is chilling, indeed.

Foran-McDaniel is a talented actor who, in the right feature-length motion picture, should be a major player not only Down Under but in Hollywood as well. She just needs a film that does her justice.

“Here There Be Monsters” is not a bad film; in fact, there's a lot to like, including the camerawork, production values, and earnestness of the creative people both before and behind the camera. It's just not a vehicle for stardom. It might well open some doors for Foran-McDaniel, however, and her screen presence, her credibility, and her impressive talent deserve more.

Grade: B