Short Film, Short Review: The Backwoods Collide In NEVER TEAR US APART

Two young men have driven out to a remote house in the woods. One thinks it is quaint and idyllic. Are these guys lost? Are they at the right cabin? One of them walks up to the window and what he sees inside scares the bejeebuz out of him. The elderly couple inside are just sitting down for a home-cooked meal. Of human meat. Aghast he backs away from the house and raises a ruckus. They hear him and give chase!

Never Tears Us Apart never gives you this sense that it is just a small part of a much bigger idea, but it is. In its concise six minute length Canadian filmmaker Sid Zanforlin sets up his characters, puts them in immediate peril, and kills one of them tremendously well. Then he flips the table and suddenly this mistaken visit becomes something else entirely, cue the punchline. 

Once you know that this is an inkling of what Zanforlin has in mind for a feature film it gets the wheels turning and keeps you guessing as to what approach Zanforlin would take when he gets to tell the whole story. Where would this six minutes fit into his feature length story?

This is the kind of backwoods horror comedy done in the same vein as Dale and Tucker vs Evil. A full length feature version of Never Tear Us Apart could be tremendously funny and gory. In fact, about half the financing is already in place to get a feature version of this going.

Sid Zanforlin's Never Tear Us Apart played at Morbido the other week and will screen in front of Save Yourself at Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival on Saturday, November 27th at 9:30.