Encore (2007) Online

While a musician performs an encore about death, we see a young man both lying on a hospital gurney while also being in a park waiting for a bus which is full of odd characters.

The plot summary currently on IMDb for this short film was submitted by an anonymous user although almost certainly it was provided by someone involved in the making, or taken from a marketing blurb. I say this because the part where it states that the film "offers a multi sensational experience with it's (sic) fresh take on combining music and visuals, dream and reality, life and death" is the sort of nonsense only a PR person would write and for sure it does not apply to this film. The plot sees a song played out over a scene where a young man travels to hell on an old style London double-decker. As an idea it is an OK one but the delivery does nothing with it.

The song is only "ok" (but a matter of personal taste I guess) while the short story that plays under it is obvious and rather stiff. We see a boy clearly expiring and see him making his journey to the next world but it is badly shot with some sort of fuzzy effect that makes it look cheap and the actual content is poor since I guess we are meant to be blown away by the "fresh" "multi sensational experience" that we are part of – as opposed to bored by an obvious tale with nothing going on but still badly told. Performances are a bit clunky – Hampton offers nothing, Ravitz is a bit hammy, Abe tries to emote to a level not supported by the film, and Sesta is just a caricature but is interesting to see her resume on IMDb as a picture of a jobbing actress over so many decades.

Encore is pretty weak – I hate to criticize short films made with so little resource because they represent effort and drive to make them happen, but this doesn't mean they automatically become good and indeed this one isn't. Poorly shot with an empty story and delivery, it offers little and delivers even less.