Essays · Movies

A Stirring Short Film That Blends Sci-Fi Technology With Noir Trappings

By  · Published on January 10th, 2014

Why Watch? A small town sheriff, a bizarre set of murders, a programming genius locked into a conspiracy. This short from Anthony Scott Burns (the DP from the eerie The Flying Man) feels like one of Edward G. Robinson’s sweaty nightmares set on an abandoned farm-to-market road.

Calmly paced and filled with unease from the start, it also features the kind of grizzled frustration we’ve come to expect from actor Stephen McHattie as well as smart, economic writing from Burns. It’s a beautiful movie, but Manifold also injects enough science fact into its science fiction to make it stay nervously in your mind beyond the runtime.

What Will It Cost? About 8 minutes.

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Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.