Side Effect (2008)

Side Effect
Written and Directed by Liz Adams
Produced by Krishna Devine
Featuring: Virginia Newcomb, Suzy Cote, Jonathan Nail, Mat Lageman, Gage Minne, Daniel Zykov
13 minutes, 2008 www.sideeffectthemovie.net Watch the trailer

"I love a good scary movie! The genre can be so incredibly shocking, yet so fascinating and compelling at the same time...I hope that my perspective will provoke deep emotion and alarm viewers with an innovative and unexpected approach."

That was director Liz Adam’s statement in an interview with the IFA when she was making her short film Side Effect last summer.  Working with the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, Liz was able to gain support for her terrifying little work of art and bold statement on the pharmaceutical addiction our culture is currently facing. Side Effect world premiered on March 6th, 2008 in Los Angeles at the AFI. According to Liz, this short film is actually the first ten pages of a feature script  called Blood Level that she hopes to make now that she has Side effect to prove just how awesome this story could turn out to be...

Lauren is the perfect student. She gets straight A’s and takes a bunch of AP classes. She’s also industrious. She’s planning on studying for her classes, doing all her Latin homework, babysitting two small kids, and making a chicken dinner for her employers. Yeah, she’s a little stressed out. It’s clear when she talks to her boyfriend on the phone that she doesn’t even have time for the usual amount of hanky-panky that teenagers usually engage in on babysitting nights. It’s a good thing she’s got those new pills her psychiatrist gave her. They’re supposed to increase her energy and concentration, so she can handle high stress nights like this one and do well in school. Lauren, unfortunately, takes a few more pills than she’s supposed to.

Combing her homework with two kids that keep waking up and making messes, Lauren gets so frazzled that she eventually falls asleep while studying after cleaning the kitchen, giving one child a bath and putting him back to bed, carrying a crying baby, cleaning the floor, taking out the trash, putting dinner in the oven. It’s only when she wakes up in a haze of smoke when the parents come home that realizes something’s burning in the oven. And the film takes a revolutionarily evil turn at a vey quick pace.

Side Effect is aptly named; it’s a very effective film. Ultimately it is also extremely well made. Some gorgeous cinematography and really amazing practical special effects make Side Effect fun for a horror movie fan, while the interesting premise and questions it poses appeal on a more intellectual level to people who are afraid of the way pharmaceutical companies have dispensed and then retracted various medications due to severe side effects (think Phen Phen) over the years. I’m actually surprised it’s taken until now for someone to address this issue in a narrative film, and I’m doubly happy to see it done with a fair amount of blood and gore.

At a mere 13 minutes it’s harmlessly short and sweet and a testament to how genre films can be a fabulous medium for women directors to tell their most provocative stories.