LOVE ME NOT *** USA 2019 Dir: Michael Coulombe 11 mins
On Valentine’s day, set to a romantic operatic number, is a table decorated with candles, rose petals and notes of love. A young woman has invited all of her ex’s over as she tries to get through to her current boyfriend that she will not be messed about with anymore.
Now might be a good time to point out that the boyfriend is bound, gagged and tied to a chair and the rest of the guests have been brutally murdered and positioned round the table in some kind of macabre intervention. Having a cast of only 2 living characters with the main focus being the psychotic, jilted woman Jenny (which Vanessa Esperanza plays with tremendous enthusiasm) it certainly show cases the female antagonist as the victim that has finally lost her shit ( “do you know how damaging that can be to a girl?” ). Dialogue heavy yet entertaining it is quite blood soaked even if the kills are off screen and the romantic classical score is a fitting backdrop to the final grim taunting of “He loves me. He loves me not”
Review by Sarah Budd