Epilogue

 

Skewed was only the second short film I ever made — and it came together in the most honest way possible: script written the night before, shot in a single day, made entirely by me. I was a one-person crew, wearing every hat — writer, director, DP, sound, lighting, editor — not out of choice, but out of necessity. It was a school assignment, but like most film students, I procrastinated until the last minute. And yet, for all its imperfections — the uneven lighting, rough sound, and scrappy edits — I’m still proud of it.

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The story follows a young woman who’s just moved into her new apartment. Her boyfriend helps her settle in, but soon after, strange things begin to happen: dishes cleaning themselves, laundry folding without anyone there, and food cooking on its own. She informs her boyfriend of the paranormal activity, to which he asks about her roommate. She looks at him confused — “What roommate?”

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Then comes the unraveling. Her boyfriend reminds her that she moved into the new apartment with her best friend to make amends over a fallout she had with her, which caused her to plot killing her in a car crash. The woman insists the crash did happen — and that she left to be alone and to recover from its traumatic effects on her. But the truth is far more unsettling. The final flashback reveals her in the kitchen, standing over the stove where the food had seemed to cook itself. Only this time, we see what really happened: she’s holding a knife, covered in blood, standing over the body of her roommate.

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I decided to title this  film Skewed because that’s exactly what it is — a skewed, disjointed version of reality through the eyes of someone trying to forget what they’ve done. It was a psychological experiment as much as it was a production exercise. And even though I didn’t have the experience or equipment to make it perfect, this project showed me what I was capable of — and made me want to keep going.