The Open Doors

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Last week, I shared a short film from the Future Shorts collection, and here’s another one I like, a Victorian ghost story featuring Michael Sheen, of Frost/Nixon. Like the last short, it’s vaguely creepy but nothing scary happens.




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21 thoughts on “The Open Doors

  1. Patty June 10, 2016 / 6:42 pm

    I enjoy these vaguely creepy videos. Can’t blame her though, there was no internet or TV, she had to entertain herself somehow.

  2. Elizabeth June 10, 2016 / 7:10 pm

    Awesome video.

  3. Faye June 10, 2016 / 7:29 pm

    I enjoyed that. Amazing what can be conveyed in ten minutes. Wish that were my house.

    • dubravkamcvmd June 10, 2016 / 7:55 pm

      Really. The house is beautiful, what you can see of it

  4. allein June 10, 2016 / 8:13 pm

    This was great! Thanks, nomtom! 🙂

  5. Gigi_the cat lady June 10, 2016 / 9:13 pm

    Old fashion ghost story with a twist, loved it!!
    Long white curtains blowing in the wind creep me out, comes from seeing the Cocteau’s 1946 Beauty and the Beast at a very young age. There a scene with Belle running down a long corridor with long white drapes blowing in the wind that stayed with me. The scene has been copied in many movies since.

    • Faye June 10, 2016 / 10:17 pm

      I love that movie. Wonderful black and white.

  6. sugitomo June 10, 2016 / 9:53 pm

    Wow, this brings back memories! I remember reading this short story back in middle school or so and completely forgot about it, until this video. Nice job bringing it to life!

      • Smartypants June 10, 2016 / 10:36 pm

        Oh, cool – thanks for posting this!

        • allein June 10, 2016 / 10:41 pm

          🙂

    • Juno June 13, 2016 / 11:10 am

      I remember reading it back then, too, Sugitomo. I believe it was in some kind of anthology of short stories, probably made especially for the classroom. My siblings and I all had to read it for school. We all loved it, and I’ve never forgotten it.

  7. fkaWaldenPond June 11, 2016 / 12:54 am

    I kinda wish at the end with a mischievous directorial wink instead of young teenage long-tales, the ‘ghosts’ were, well ghosts. (and how old was Micheal Sheen in this! 🙂 )

    • Clairdelune June 11, 2016 / 2:19 am

      Me too!! I love that kind of twist. Besides, that would have been fitting punishment for the young liar!! She might have been driven to sprint out of the house along with the terrified cleric. 😀

  8. Kar June 11, 2016 / 1:01 am

    Thats the kind of kid who burns down the house and says it must’ve been her dead grandmother or her brother who was affected by ‘his father’s illness.’

    She’s going to have some explaining to do at church on sunday when they see this poor guy again.

    • Clairdelune June 11, 2016 / 2:22 am

      Maybe not, probably the poor guy would have been several miles away from that place, given the way he was fleeing in terror…

  9. George Michael Sherry June 11, 2016 / 3:48 am

    That mischievous little imp. She really set him up. At least, that’s how I prefer to interpret it — the other interpretation is that she’s a pathetic, mentally ill compulsive liar. Either way, she really did that well. She had me believing her too. That was a wonderfully creative ghost story with no ghosts.

    That movie was made in 2004 (for some reason, I had assumed these were NEW shorts (maybe because the source is named Future Shorts?) but obviously not. The young girl is played by Charlotte Ritchie; she was 14 at the time. She was an extra in Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire (the year after this was made) and has been in several TV series — all on the BBC, I guess — including one I recognize, Call the Midwife (it must have been on PBS?). And to answer a question, Michael Sheen would have been 35 ish.

    Somehow that short story got left out of my school textbooks. We had The Monkey’s Paw. That one really did have supernatural elements. This one is much more subtle. That little imp! They were still slippering girls in Britain in 1914 (or whenever). If she ever gets caught, she’ll be eating off the mantle.

    P.S. (Thanks for the editing window, NTMTOM), the About page for Future Shorts says “Future Shorts has been providing a Global platform for short content since 2004,” so maybe this WAS new when they originally posted it. It wouldn’t have been on Youtube back then, though, would it? Was there Youtube in 2004?? Wikipedia says it was started in 2005, which is longer ago than I expected. So where was Future Shorts originally? Was it a film festival? Was there another video hosting site back then? Hmm.

    • Alice Shortcake June 11, 2016 / 4:38 am

      I thought this little gem must have been made quite a few years ago – Michael Sheen looks as though he’s just stepped off the set of “Wilde”, in which he played Robbie Ross.

      • Kar June 11, 2016 / 6:53 pm

        I was watching Mary Reilly,one of the few Julia Robert movies that I can sit through, when guess who shows up?

        Like Downton Abbey in a gray misted purgatory. Similar to The Others.

  10. Denvergal June 11, 2016 / 8:37 am

    Loved it….excellent storytelling and acting! The niece is one of the newer actresses on Call the Midwife — a fabulous, under-rated PBS series set in post WWII London.

    • Kar June 11, 2016 / 6:49 pm

      I can’t tell you how upset my family is that Miranda left the series.

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