Written and directed by Ou Alan Chung-An (Repent), Part Forever (Taiwan - 2022) is the winner of the "Best Horror Short Film" of the DarkVeins Horror Fest 2022.
About 12 minutes in length, this eerie film is a ghost story about a Taiwanese belief that a deceased person's soul returns home to visit family within three days of death. During this time, family members watch over the body of their loved one until the day of burial.
Ou Alan Chung-An packs an elegant and macabre horror film in which deepest emotions are born and die during a funeral ceremony. From the outset, the film conveys a deep sense of claustrophobia triggered by a dark and spooky location. Here, the lifeless body of a girl lies on a bed of white roses, mourned by her sister Huei and Wen Hsiung, the latter's husband.
During the night, however, amid tears and caresses, the darkest secrets will emerge preventing the ritual.
The glacial black and white of the first minutes of Part Forever highlights a leaden and funereal atmosphere in keeping with the subject matter. After the initial emotions triggered by such a setting, an unexpected state of aversion enters the story that completely reverses its course, revealing not only the true nature of the protagonist but also of the film, which reveals deep references to J-Horror.
The road to the finale of this morbid, tension-filled nightmare is thus thickened with extraordinary twists and turns that add more horror to the story. In Part Forever, resentment indeed leads to necrophilia, impulsive and perverse desire experienced as an extreme act of revenge.
Stunning and chilling, Part Forever possesses a great funereal charm and is characterized by carefully crafted cinematography that focuses on opposing tones highlighting the conflicting feelings that meander throughout the duration of the short.
In the cast: Yang Ming, Li Hsiang, Yang Kevin and Wang Sidney.
