With an unconventional premise, the short purports itself to be something we haven’t seen in horror before, and it is definitely different than anything in found footage. Told through surveillance camera footage that is seemingly monitoring the family for some kind of test study, the tone and concept of Resnick’s suburban horror tale feel very unique. The specificity of the story — even with many details left out for the viewer to piece together — and Resnick’s singularly strange sense of humor craft this weird parable into something utterly horrifying. Me, I had a hard time sleeping for a few days after my first watch.
A lot of what works in this story pulls from the brilliant and wacky performances just as much as the story, weird worldbuilding (what’s Lynks Disease? Don’t even ask), and the production design details. Robby Rackleff plays the family’s patriarch and he is particularly effective in building the overall tension of the piece. His role couldn’t be more crucial, and he meets the moment with a fierce intensity that really forces the audience to become intimately familiar with the terror this family is facing. In a past interview I did with Resnick, he told me that Rackleff — who is a member of the comedy group Wham City alongside Resnick and Cricket Arrison, who also appears in the short — mostly improved his role, which is honestly a bit of a marvel.