Bits

There’s something inevitable about the encroaching darkness in the film Bits.

As soon as the title is revealed to be the name of a dog, happily out on a walk with Hannah (Betsey Brown) and John (Morgan Krantz), a foreboding sets in. A bit like Chekov’s Gun, the fate of Bits feels sealed. For this is a film in which a serial killer inhabits a small Montana town, and in which local women have gone missing. But Lilliya Scarlett Reid’s take on this subject matter follows one potential victim and the way her world is warped both by her local society and the killer in their midst.

Hannah’s date with John doesn’t go very well and she is frustrated by his rejection. One night she sees him throw something into the local dump and finds the body of the beloved dog, which she promptly buries herself. Rather than being horrified, she uses this act of kindness as a reason to speak to him again. Even when her friend reveals that John has been found to have killed multiple women, Hannah brushes it off.

Far from just being a film about a woman becoming enamoured of a dangerous man, or of a darkness, Reid combines such tropes with the limited prospects of a young woman in small town America. Here, Hannah’s options are reduced, the scope of her life restricted by her environment to such a degree that even the horror of being selected by a serial killer becomes some way to break through, to go beyond her current situation. In a stultifying world, even the worst atrocity becomes a form of release.

Anchored on an intricate and subtle performance by Betsey Brown as the difficult-to-pin-down Hannah, Bits is a murky and engrossing little drama.

Director, screenplay: Lilliya Scarlett Reid
Cast: Betsey Brown, Morgan Krantz, “One Take” Spike, Jon Gries
Producer: Julian Paul Stein
Cinematography: Nico Van Den Berg
Editing: Santiago Candejas
Production design: Fiona Story
Sound: Alonso Esquinca
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English
22 minutes

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