Catcalls Review (Short Film, 2020)
content warning: sexual harassment, nudity, violence against women, gore
In “Catcalls,” a man drives around, looking for his next target to sexually harass. He picks the wrong young women to go after.
Writer/director Kate Donal crafts an atmospheric revenge film in under 10 minutes. The use of lighting is quite effective. The initial driving sequence exaggerates the contrast between streetlights and darkness, the flicker of store awnings and the intensity of headlights. This establishes a world of hidden meaning and suggestion. The streets are filled with men turning away from the light, staring into the darkness. The few women who exist glow in the darkness, able to see everything happening around them.
This transfers over to the man’s house. He arrives home to his wife, pretending nothing has happened. She’s aware of the world around her, ready to leave for an extra shift at the hospital. He’s always obscured by shadows, unsure of how to hide his duplicitous life from his wife.
I do want to address the content warning in this review. What happens in “Catcalls” is far less extreme than most revenge films. The form of the genre requires a shocking act of violence, usually gendered violence, to happen on-screen. That attack has to enrage the audience. There needs to be an obvious need for justice, which we accept as revenge against the criminal.
This man’s crime is pretty rough. He exposes himself to the unsuspecting young women while distracting them from his actions with a benign request for directions. There’s a perverse desire in his life fulfilled by forcing this action on his victims. While the two young women recoil, he drives away to finish the job right outside his house.
The setup in “Catcalls” works well. There’s not enough time in a film this short to allow the audience to absorb a more aggressive crime than this. The man’s actions are just upsetting enough to prepare for the kick of revenge a few short minutes later.
The rest of the beats are there, albeit with some unexpected twists in genre. The criminal returns to his daily life, convinced he’s gotten away with it. He’s nervous, but no one is the wiser. Then his victims come back into his life, breaking the divide between his perverted fantasy and his idealistic reality. The victims, the ones who know who he really is, have all the power and can do whatever they want with him.
“Catcalls” packs a lot of suspense in nine minutes. There isn’t a lot of time for scares, especially in a revenge form, but Dolan stacks them one after another in the last minutes of the film. It’s a powerful short film.
“Catcalls” is streaming on Shudder.
My new book #31 Days: A Collection of Horror Essays, Vol. 1 is available in my Ko-fi and wherever eBooks are sold.
