Drums

Living next door to someone who plays drums is a horror movie in of itself, but finding a kit in your new flat is an unusual set-up for a film full of frights. This is the premise of horror short Drums, but marching to its own beat doesn’t mean this catches the right tempo.

Casey (Simona Rose) is desperate to move into her new place, and when she is told it won’t be ready for another night, the one thing she needs is sleep. But her current accommodation houses a bizarre houseguest – a drumkit belonging to a former occupant. When it randomly starts playing in the middle of the night, Casey tries to get her landlord (Rudy Ledbetter) to remove it. But a startling revelation in the meantime casts a new light on the supernatural self-playing – one that puts Casey’s life in danger…

Low-budget horror shorts live and die by ingenuity and the ability of the filmmakers to form immediate connections between their characters and the audience, and the originality of the circumstances in which they are inevitably threatened with brutality. And until Slipknot start replacing band members with AI, then an evil drumkit is certainly original. But the film’s execution of its meagre plot is poor, and there’s little substance behind the haunting of Casey. The story behind the drum’s evil nature is classic slasher fodder, but there is little context or reason given to how this relates to the character of the protagonist.

Simona Rose’s Casey is world-weary, irritable and has a tense relationship with her landlord (AKA 2024’s everyman). But we don’t get much sense of her beyond this, such as her history or past, and the character’s distant personality means they don’t quite bring the classic vulnerability of a horror protagonist. Placing her into a random environment in which she is in danger therefore feels a little empty, as there is no emotional connection between her and the audience. Random, inexplicable scary events are really just that without proper synergy between the character and story, and this ultimately blights the film.

There a couple of flourishes that help develop the story in interesting ways, such as a brief but telling look at Casey’s name in the landlord’s phone or the ramshackle appearance of the flat being a hint towards the neglect with which tenants are treated. But there is also the presence of unintentional moments of shaky cameras, and the pivotal sequence in which the evil behind the drums reveals itself is uninspired and derivative – a copy/paste sequence of countless horrors past.

Drums is an original premise, but there’s not really enough underneath this horror short to get a rhythm going. A disconnected story, undercooked protagonist and the lack of visceral or standout direction makes the film flat. Whereas some of the shortcomings can be pinned on the low budget, some basic refinements would have allowed it to succeed much more as an obtuse short.