4 Minutes of Terror: Night Slasher is the latest film from horror filmmaker Nicholas Michael Jacobs (Tales from Six Feet Under, Urban Fears), someone who is known for his urban horror anthologies. In recent years a lot of his output has been centred around the antagonist character of Genevieve, so it was nice to see some welcome variation. Night Slasher is the first in a series of anthology horror shorts under the 4 Minutes of Terror banner, and surprisingly enough this clocks in at around four minutes. As always, Jacobs is responsible for much of the creation, both directing, producing, writing, editing and acting in this one.
Reggie (Naceem Bright) is visiting the grave of his mother one dark night where he vows to find the person responsible for her death. Walking back to his car along the silent streets the man suddenly discovers he is not alone.
While the plot of this short is very simple and not something you would have not seen before, it was executed wonderfully. Much of the short is the lead up to the meeting of the titular Night Stalker (Jacobs), with Reggie walking down dark lonely streets, but the camera work here was constantly engaging. In particular I really liked the off-kilter angles used throughout, giving the city an uneasy odd feel. I don't know exactly what this particular angle use is called, but it reminded me of the original Silent Hill video game that used similar distorted angles.
The look of the killer was great, the red hooded coat along with a cool looking mask really gave something distinctive. He may not have featured much but his look was visually striking against the backdrop of the streets.
There were some noticeable computer generated effects on a few occasions, such as the writing on a tombstone, and sparks coming off the killers weapon as he draws it along metal railings, but that didn't really take anything away, instead it kind of added to the comic book Tales From the Crypt style this short was aiming for. Some may be a bit disappointed that the film cuts to credits before the movie reaches its full conclusion, but I loved the way that final scene integrated itself into the fun end credits in which the cartoon figure of The Freak talked about what had just occurred.
The quality of Night Stalker was impressive, it felt to me that Jacobs has steadily been improving his craft over the years. Despite a somewhat unoriginal tale, I found myself really enjoying this. The music and sound effects were spot on, and I really did like that neat transition into the end credits. I'm a sucker for horror anthologies, so this being the first in a new series is exciting to me, I saw on IMDB that the follow up, 4 Minutes of Terror: Death Throes is currently in pre-production, so I will keep my eyes out for that one.
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