Movie Review: Katherine Oostman's “The Stranger” (2021)
In celebration of Women in Horror month, we’re featuring our first independent filmmaker: Katherine Oostman. Oostman is a writer/director who creates stories that haunt the viewer by creating simple doubts. Her short film, The Stranger, is a psychological thriller set during the holidays.
The Stranger plays as a modern dream sequence, suspenseful with beautiful cinematography and a refreshingly sparse script. The story follows main character Blake (Melissa Saint-Maud), who is returning home to surprise her mother (Ashley LeConte Campbell) for Christmas after a significant time away. However, a stranger posing as her sister has taken her place. Blake, confused and hurt, tries to piece together her past.
The short film opens with the sound of a doorbell, even before we get a visual. We’re dropped into the scene on the front doorstep of a stately home and see Blake shifting nervously before entering. There’s some really excellent sound design here: Blake’s breathing, the clenching of her gloves, the antique door handle ripping open, and the doorbell tripping just a half-second too early, which is a perfect auditory clue to the narrative of the film (and a motif that is heard later). Throughout the entire short, you’re left feeling as though you’ve just tripped over something that you can’t see.
The Stranger, courtesy of the director
If you guessed that the sister, Lily (Autumn Dial), opened the door, you’re correct. In the following scenes, Blake is reunited with her mother in an awkward conversation that barely contains any dialog. In fact, much of the script has very few words that fit logically. Characters exchange exclamations that aren’t complete responses to questions or previous statements. It’s as if they all exist beside one another—but not together—stuck in separate realities, talking to no one in particular. This bizarre dialog is one of the short’s major strengths and something that I have been craving in modern horror cinema for some time. Through limited conversation, the audience is held captive trying to figure out the narrative alongside Blake. The Stranger is excellent at pushing the fine line between showing and telling. Creating such a modern script, however, relies heavily on the set design to take up the empty space. I was pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful set—something that is not easy for a young filmmaker to obtain.
The practical pieces of the film were nearly invisible except when needed, which is a mark of great direction. The empty picture frames hang on the set throughout the film, but are only noticeable when Blake calls attention to them for a relevant scene. Lily’s red dresses paint her as some sort of bizarre harlot and contrast sharply against Blake’s all-black jeans and sweaters, a way to make sure that we know that they can’t possibly be sisters. The lighting, makeup, and visuals of the rest of the house are beautiful and not exaggerated to explain the horror of one’s reality shifting.
On the flip side, I wish that the score had more to offer. I can’t say that the music was as ambitious or unique as I had hoped, but it does fit each scene well. I’m impatiently awaiting a horror short to shatter our ideas of the typical horror sounds of sirens, rumblings, and Psycho-inspired strings. This script is ripe to fill in those sonic gaps in a distinctive way. Similarly, the unique suspense of the film begins to collapse for me near the climax when Blake finally accuses Lily of being a stranger rather than her sister. After an intense scene between the two women, the conversation spills out into considerably more lines exchanged between mother and daughter. Here it seems that there are more lines in a few minutes than the rest of the film combined, and although we are meant to feel the rush of the story unfolding, we do not learn any new information—instead, a build-up that leads to Blake being banished from the house without explanation. If given the option, I’d rather stay in the suspense of it, with even less dialog.
Overall, this short was a joy to watch. With beautiful lighting and expert performances, The Stranger brings much-needed suspense to the holiday season and significantly adds to the Christmas horror subgenre that we need more of. Katherine Oostman is a director that we’ll be sure to watch.
You can watch The Stranger and more of Katherine’s films on Youtube.
Katherine Oostman is a writer / director whose breadth of work includes narrative, documentary, and branded content. Her narrative short film "The Stranger" won a bronze Telly Award for directing and screened at numerous festivals including San Diego Comic Con, the Atlanta Film Festival, and the Florida Film Festival. Her most recent branded work for Google Arts & Culture was made in collaboration with illustrious cultural institutions such as Carnegie Hall. She is also the founder of Film Femme, a filmmaking-inspired clothing brand designed to champion female-identifying creators in the industry.
Article written by Theresa Baughman
Theresa totally hates movies but sometimes watches them with her friends. She writes about the intersection of art & anthropology and she loves demonic possession horror.
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