Midnight Rot

A young musician is finding it hard to sell his music or to make anything that matters, until one night he falls into a strange slumber and meets a shadowy figure at a crossroads.

At seventeen years old, Seth Fenter has decided he wants to be a filmmaker. As writer, director, cinematographer, editor, and producer on Midnight Rot, he’s taking that decision very seriously indeed. He and his friends over at Small Shot Pictures made a few films about a year or so ago, which were varying degrees of interesting but all very amateur, however, there appears to have been nothing since. Perhaps the quality of Midnight Rot might provide an explanation for that.

Unlike most of his buddies, and considering the roster of tasks he already felt compelled to take on during this project, Fenter decided not to star in Midnight Rot, but instead gave that honour to his similarly adolescent friend, Jacob John Wood, who rather optimistically is credited as ‘The Man’. This anonymous guy stands in the dark in his bedroom, in what seems to be his mum’s house, with his curtains open, but with absolutely zero light coming in to illuminate the scene. He’s on the phone mumbling like a teenager about not getting his music sold, or it not being the right fit for the current production. He’s at a bit of a crossroads in terms of what to do about breaking out and making his music sound better to the world. That’s when, like in a lot of gloomy teenage bedrooms these days, the computer screen speaks to him and hypnotises him into a macabre dream.

The musician then meets a hooded figure at a crossroads, in the dark, at night, with no light anywhere to illuminate the scene, and they mumble together in some sort of backwards language to strike a deal. Waking to find that he still has no real talent, there is instead a gift of songs for the musician, the first half of a bargain, but of course the price always has to be paid, and the reaper will always come calling.

On the whole, what Fenter has managed to do is create a strong visual narrative around a very well tried and tested storyline. His characters are automatically archetypal, and the themes resonate with everyone, so all he’s really got to do is get the storytelling right, and for what he appears to have wanted to achieve, he’s done that. His decision to film in almost total darkness is a strange one, as it doesn’t help the viewer when they can’t see what’s going on, but it does make sense that these themes and these scenarios would most likely take place in the absence of any light. It’s just not very cinematic.

There’s obvious issues with the sound and the dialogue, but when you can’t always see what they’re being matched to it doesn’t really matter so much. The music from Cryptic Scenery works well and is a nice accompaniment to the narrative, and Fenter does choose his shots nicely to create a feeling of continuity throughout his film. It’s just never clear if we really get anywhere in the whole twenty-four minutes of Midnight Rot, or that we ever get away even slightly from the central action of the selling of his soul.

While Midnight Rot is definitely atmospheric and visual in its narrative, too much of it is hidden away in darkness for too much of the time, and almost no technical skill is attended in the making of the film. Fenter shows real promise as a director, but in taking on every role himself he has let his own production down by not getting the best people for the job. After a year to think about it, maybe it’s time to get out there and make another one, just with a stronger, wider story to it, and maybe some light thrown in there as well.