Watch Alone Time For Free

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

"Alone Time" is an American 13-minute live action short film from 2013, so this one will have its 5th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Rod Blackhurst and he is most known for his Funnyordie work and also his recent Amanda Knox documentary movie, which may have given his other works (like this one here) also a minor boost here on IMDb in terms of popularity. Anyway, this one here is a film about a young woman stressed out by her hectic (job) life in the city, so she heads towards the mountainside and goes swimming in a lake. That's all there is to it. Oh well, not quite. The ending adds a special note to it that lets audiences question everything before these final 45 seconds, but it just isn't not enough. The action in here could have been packed very well into 3 instead of 13 minutes to be honest. Good thing is that there is no dialogue here, so no matter where you are from you don't need subtitles, even if you don't speak English. But why would you really want to see it. It is inspiring to take some off-time I admit, but as film it is not working to a sufficient degree. watch something else instead.

I have to admit, the views were absolutely stunning when Ann came into the North River forest in New York. I would love to go there but I wouldn't really like to go on my own like Ann did. Heck, she'd be braver then me! Then near the end, she was looking through her photographs when she had a nice time camping around the forest. However, what was horrible when she looked through the photos? Like did she take the photos in her sleep or did the subway dude follow her? I honestly hate asking these questions to myself especially seeing a short film that won't explain what honestly happened. I find this annoying and I think there should've been more detail throughout this film, especially having more lines!

I usually don't comment on short films, quite frankly because I can't find sufficient things to write about, but this one spooks around in my head since several days now. When I finished watching the barely 12-minute-long "Alone Time", via the website of a Belgian magazine, it hit me that I know the plot from an urban legend that I heard at least 15 to 20 years ago already. It's extremely simplistic and without any notion of violence, but the idea behind it is disturbing and genuinely petrifying. A single and attractive twenty- something New York girl suffers from fatigue and heads straight towards a burn-out. Every morning she steps into a crowded subway train, on her way to another unexciting day at a colorless office. Writer/director Rod Blackhurst marvelously captures this familiar routine. The trains as well as the New York streets are full of people, but nobody speaks a word or even grants a smile to one another. There is one male individual that clearly observes the girl, but they don't talk, and every evening she returns to her lonesome apartment. Subsequently, the girl – Anna – plans a quiet and solitude vacation upstate New York, in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains. She enjoys nature, swims in the lake and takes snapshots with a throwaway camera. Back at home, Anna suddenly sees the evidence that she wasn't alone up there in the mountains after all… I certainly don't want to accuse Rod Blackhurst of plagiarism, or anything, but I swear this story must be based on an ancient urban legend that got forgotten over the years. It definitely was a nice re-discovery, especially because the short film is sober and tense, and quite compelling from start to finish. As a viewer, you're ready for something terrible happen. And it does, but not in the way you expect. The Adirondack scenery is breath-taking and unknown (to me, at least) actress Rose Hemingway is a natural beauty.