A backpack-toting girl trudges via what seems like a sun-baked subject of grass, fidgeting with a water bottle that’s received just some drops left in it. Things would solely appear mildly dire if she hadn’t additionally simply handed one other girl, sprawled in a heap a couple of ft off the path, screaming in agony for assist—and with a steely look on her face, walked on previous. Then we discover the trail she’s striding alongside is marked with gravel and is barely a foot vast, and we are able to immediately intuit that she isn’t planning to deviate from it, not for any cause.

But why? What’s on the market? Who made the trail and the place does it lead? Just sufficient data is revealed in Narrow, a brief movie by author, director, and lead actor Anna Chazelle. Shared by Short of the Week, it unfolds over 10 unbelievably tense minutes as we observe the protagonist throughout a panorama the place one false step spells unspeakable doom.

After the shrieking girl on the outset, the merciless temptations solely ramp up from there—oh, the can of meals that the makeshift lasso juuuust received’t attain—and shortly construct into psychological terrors so terrible you’ll be able to perceive why the hiker decides to do what she does. We by no means get a great luck at no matter’s monitoring her each transfer—or a way of what it needs, or what kind of apocalyptic occasion has given it a lot energy. But as Chazelle tells Short of the Week, that’s form of the purpose: “To me, horror clarifies what is truly important in our lives by stripping away the unnecessities. I love stories with simple yet imaginative premises that are approached in grounded, authentic ways. I especially loved the idea of playing with sound—I’m always particularly impressed by films, especially horror, that aren’t afraid of silence.”

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