An off duty police officer attends an unusual call, in this twisted short film with a sting in the tail...
Off Duty is our third short horror film, following hot on the heels of our previous short film, Pulse.
This time, we drew on our narrative drama roots to bring a twisted story to life, with a few good scares along the way.
It toured international festivals after premiering in 2018, and received a Best Actress nomination for Becki Pantling's performance as Jess Layton.
CONTENT WARNING: This film is intended to challenge the idea of capital punishment. The use of a police officer to explore this idea means the film contains scenes that may be particularly disturbing for some viewers. TW: suicide references, hanging
We're always happy for our work to reach new audiences, so if you're interested in screening the film, reviewing it or featuring it in an article, please do get in touch!
"In the spring of 2018, I had access to three important things - a police uniform, a warehouse in Basildon, and a brilliant crew of people who enjoyed making horror films at the weekend with me. So, from one Friday evening as the warehouse closed down for the weekend, to the early hours of Monday morning when the first delivery arrived, we shot a story about a young female police officer who could talk to ghosts.
In the coming weeks, as the story came together in the edit, a few things became clear. Firstly, warehouses make for great horror settings, and police officers are a pretty great starting point if you need a hero, a villain, or just someone who's likely to be poking their nose around in a dark warehouse. Secondly, the eight-minute film we just made was nowhere near long enough to do the idea justice.
So I ended up developing the short we made into a full novel, to try and go deeper into challenging capital punishment, critiquing police oversight and trying to make readers question how truly sinister astral projection might be.
I hope viewers of the short really enjoy the way this story began - I think the team did a brilliant job bringing this version of it to life, and many details of it were carried over into the novel, in tribute to their excellent work."
Becki Pantling, Director
To find out more about the novel Off Duty, please click here.