Rob Munday
When I think of all the most popular horror shorts we’ve featured on S/W – Curve, Other Side of the Box, Stucco – the terror in those films comes from something otherworldly and unknown. Yet, with all the horrific sh*t happening in the world on a daily basis, it’s surprising more filmmakers don’t base their scares closer to home. One genre filmmaker taking a much more grounded approach with her storyline is A.K. Espada, who tackles animal cruelty and ethics in her ingenious short This Is Our Home.
With the whole film set within the flat Dina shares with her housemate Ruya, Espada’s short gives a clear indication of its intentions within its first 40-seconds. As we’re presented with a message stating that ‘no animals were harmed in the production of this film, however, real archive footage of an animal in distress has been used’, before seeing a shot of a struggling mouse caught in a trap, it’s evident that This Is Our Home is focused on humanity’s relationship with the animal world.
Ruba Thérèse Mansouri (L) and Mor Cohen star as This Is Our Home’s disparate flatmates
If there was any doubt, it’s hammered home in the first conversation we witness between the flatmates. As vegan Dina asks her roomie if she used her pan, Ruya replies “popcorn only, no bacon I swear”, before realising she used butter and states the obvious – “it’s not vegan is it”. This odd couple are employed to represent contrasting world views, with Dina constantly showing compassion, while Ruya only seems interested in herself. These opposing opinions consistently come to a head in This Is Our Home, but it’s not just the two humans sharing this living space and in the end their rodent housemates have quite the impact on their lives.
“While humans enjoy our place at the top of the food chain, we don’t exactly deserve it”
Inspired to write This Is Our Home after a Brooklyn apartment she lived in with three roommates suffered from a rodent infestation, the quartet all agreed on using humane methods of pest control at first, but that outlook soon changed. “As the infestation worsened, it started to feel more like a war between the apartment’s human and rodent tenants”, the director reveals. “One by one, my roommates decided they’d had enough and accepted that we might need to stoop to stronger, crueler methods. Eventually I agreed, too. I felt a lot of guilt, but not enough to stay true to my values. I couldn’t stop thinking that while humans enjoy our place at the top of the food chain, we don’t exactly deserve it. What if we deserve the same fate as any other species that could be considered a nuisance?”
While most of us will have killed some form of animal life in our time on Earth (it feels almost impossible not to have), This Is Our Home unravels the morality behind purposefully exterminating them and whether we have the right to make such choices. For Espada, being involved in the eradication of the “vermin” within her living space didn’t sit easily with her. “We all have to make choices that go against our values”, she admits, adding that she believes “to some extent, everyone is a hypocrite. I wanted to explore the guilt I felt as a result of stepping across a line to do something I considered wrong in order to protect myself”.
The apartment’s superintendent presents a bag of captured baby mice to Dina like it’s some kind of trophy.
The horror element of This Is Our Home comes from two different angles. The use of real-life footage of a struggling, trapped mouse is deeply upsetting and whatever your beliefs, I’d hope that no-one would watch that without feeling anything other than disgust. It’s the use of this home video that initially unsettles you as a viewer, but as the film progresses Dina’s anxiety and concerns seep from the screen, infecting the audience. As she begins to unravel under the stress of the situation Espada’s film slips into more surreal territory, as she begins to explore the idea of animals taking back what we feel entitled to. In its final scenes, This Is Our Home progresses to full-horror mode as we’re confronted with the images of the apartment’s superintendent gleefully holding up a bag of baby rodents and the gruesome comeuppance of the ambivalent Ruya.
“All the mice are puppets, and pretty much everything you see is done practically”
As you would expect from such a successful horror short, especially with its director’s experiences in the art department in the film industry, everything about the aesthetic here feels incredibly well-considered and along with its impactful message, This Is Our Home makes an equally strong impression with its visuals. The atmospheric cinematography and score really help amplify the mood and tension and there are also a few creative directorial decisions on show in Espada’s short that really help it stand out – especially the shots from the rodents perspective and the FX work.
“We used a lot of puppets!” the filmmaker explains. “All the mice are puppets, and pretty much everything you see is done practically. I didn’t want to try to use real mice – at our budget, it seemed like there was no way to do it that wasn’t exploitative, and that wouldn’t feel right – especially considering the thematic content. Although you could argue that the most powerful moment in the film might come from that piece of archival footage used early on, This Is Our Home lands a couple of knockout blows in its finale. The reveal of what has happened to Ruya hits first, followed by Dina quickly finding herself in a sticky situation. However, it’s the perspective from the pipe and then the close-up of the rodent’s face that makes it the perfect end. The use of the “that’s all folks” circle fade-out is really the ironic icing on the cake.
With this This Is Our Home having its online premiere on Short of the Week this Halloween, Espada is already working on several new projects with the first short from her collective FILM CLUB, The Promotion, currently touring festival circuit and another short, also shot by Alexandra Bock (the DP of This Is Our Home), called I Could Just Die, and That Would Be All Right in post-production. Even more exciting than, the feature script for This Is Our Home is also in development after it was awarded a Sundance Horror Fellowship.