I recently reviewed SOUNDBITE, the first short film produced by Horror House Media for their YouTube channel. Well, director Michael Coulombe and writer Brantley J. Brown are back with STALK, a five minute short about the perils of walking home alone at night.

Vanessa (Kara Schaaf) is walking home one night when she senses somebody following her. And she’s right, a masked and knife wielding figure (Tyler Gallant ALPHA WOLF) is indeed stalking her. But Vanessa may be better equipped to take care of herself than her assailant thinks.

Unlike their first film which was a serious exercise in escalating horror, STALK is a bit more lighthearted. Not so much an outright comedy as a knowing wink at the audience as we see black leather gloved hands ripping a “Missing” poster off of a light post at the film’s beginning before we get into the stalking sequences themselves.

There’s a couple of great shots where we see the masked stalker following her openly on the sidewalk. He’s holding his knife and looking so much like the artwork from the poster for an 80’s slasher film, (FINAL EXAM in particular came to mind), that you have to grin. Of course when she turns around he’s vanished. In true slasher fashion fences and gates have no power over him. It all builds to a nice little “gotcha” at the end. It might not be the most unexpected ending, but it got a grin from me.

While he’s only directed a handful of shorts Michael has a huge list of credits as a script supervisor on all manner of TV shows, video games and movies including THE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER AND THEN THE BIGFOOT. He’s obviously learned well from that experience, as both of the shorts I’ve seen have been very well done technically. He gets good help here from cinematographer/editor Richard Trejo who’s worked on loads of indie films ranging from SNAKE OUT OF COMPTON and MALVOLIA’S MEMORABLE THANKSGIVING 2.

STALK is available on the Horror House Media YouTube Channel. You can keep up with their future projects on Micheal’s website.