Each one of us has, at some point in our lives, wished for some kind of super power. For me, I can’t decide if I want the power of Shapeshifting (the cool power) or the Ability to Fluently Speak Any Language Known to Man (the geeky power). It’s a tough call. But what if you had the ability to make your thoughts come true?
Destiny, the narrator of Morbid Curiosity (played by director Cindy Baer) discovers at a young age that she has just such an ability. If she imagines someone dying, it occurs immediately in exactly the way she imagined. This ability causes the deaths of her father, mother, brother, close friends, and total strangers. She claims that this morbid curiosity is natural and that she can’t help herself from thinking those things. On one hand, it is completely understandable. How often do we find ourselves imagining random, harmful, or funny things every day?
“Purple Rain… just what would that look like, anyway?”
“I really hope that the ropes on that scaffold up there don’t break.”
“Wouldn’t it be funny if my boss’ pants fell down in the middle of his big presentation?!”
And so on…
On the other hand, you get the distinct impression that while Destiny regrets that these things happened, there is a part of her that takes a perverse delight in them and in the fact that she caused them. At the end, she gets increasingly excited as she talks about the idea of a plane crashing into her house, thus indicating that she no longer has any ability to even try to hold back her imagination (and her “morbid curiosity”) any more, even if it endangers her own life.
Content
The film is done in an interview format, with still photographs to support the narration. I found that this was much more effective than showing actual footage, because the project is so short; showing a series of photos of a man falling off of a ladder onto a garden gnome is easier to follow (visually) and takes less time than actually showing it happen. The pictures fit in perfectly with the narration, and their simplicity somehow made the various incidents both more amusing and more unnerving.
Cindy Baer’s delivery of the monologue is excellent, portraying the fear and morbid fascination her character has with her ability. The film is based on a short story written by Baer’s husband, Matthew Irving, and the writing is excellent. It immediately draws you in and makes you want to find out more about Destiny. While the ending may seem predictable (because such an ability can only really have one logical conclusion), it is nevertheless effective and well-presented.
Visual Look
As mentioned above, the use of still photographs in the film is an effective and powerful tool. The camerawork is pretty basic—just a tripod—until the end when the unseen cameraman grabs the camera and flees the house. At first, I was afraid of the Blair Witch type of camera shake that so often happens when one runs with a camera, but it was surprisingly easy to watch. (That, and the fact that he only runs for a few dozen feet.)
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