'Easy Prey' is a short horror film that follows the story of the ”Woman in white”, a vampire who seduces or lures unsuspecting strangers into her home and then binges on their blood. Lately, she seems to have been incredibly hungry or thirsty, as she’s caught two victims in a matter of days.

 

The beginning of this film is a tiny bit like the scene in 'Superman' where everybody looks up into the sky and asks “Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”. The same goes for this story. With an ambiguous enough title like 'Easy Prey', people don’t know what to expect. Will it be about a serial killer, a kidnapper, a sexual abuser? No, it turns out the actual answer is “It’s a vampire!”.

 

The short does a great job of playing with the viewer’s mind and sense of perception. Most people’s first thought will probably be that Axel will either rob, hurt or kill The Woman. But the tables are turned and the roles are reversed at the drop of a dime. Axel becomes the hunted instead of the hunter and things get a lot more intense.

 

The scenes are fantastically shot, the cinematography and camera angles manage to portray a very suspenseful plot. The music accompanies the action very well, being dramatic in dangerous situations and increasing the sense of dread in those tense scenes. From a technical point of view, the movie is impeccable. The plot might make some viewers remember the first few seasons of Supernatural when the Winchester brothers used to hunt creatures like “The Woman in white”. But it is kind of hard to reinvent movies about vampires these days.

 

However, the story is easily extendable into a longer film and people might wonder why this shorter version was preferred. If you add the missing backstory of how The Woman came to be a vampire, who turned her, what actually happens to the victims, are they eaten or turned themselves, audiences might be even more interested in the movie. The cyclical nature of the plot in which the previous poster of the missing person is replaced with a poster of The Woman’s latest victim is a clever artifice for the short. The beginning and the end are mirrored beautifully to create the effect of symmetry.

 

The film has an original concept and it presents it to the audience in a beautiful way, while at the same time, playing tricks with their minds. The cinematography is very artistic, reminding us of an episode of the 'True Blood' TV series. The actors’ performances are as natural as can be in a fantasy world where vampires fest on innocent girls as well as petty thieves. A must watch for any fan of the genre.