Indie horror auteur Adam Wingard—best-known for his micro-budget feature Pop Skull—has made his new short film Cerebella available on YouTube. In this dark character study, a young woman living in a hotel room rides a wave of sleep deprivation, spiraling slowly into insanity.
Clocking in at just under seven minutes, Cerebella is a surprisingly poignant vignette. The lead actress—nearly the only performer in the film—is charming and sympathetic, a must given her constant onscreen presence and her voiceover narration (usually a mark of lazy writing, though it works quite well in this case) running throughout.
Wingard’s own sharp editing and gorgeous high-definition cinematography give this digital short a leg up over many lesser direct-to-YouTube narrative offerings. The surreal style of the film—alternately dreamlike and claustrophobic—makes for an artful marriage with the subject matter.
If you want to support some real independent cinema—and the new wave of digital distribution!—give Cerebella a shot. And make sure you get a good night’s sleep afterward.
Bryan McKay lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
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