7:35 de la mañana (2003) dir. Nacho Vigalondo

Don’t even before I’ve had my coffee.

This was an Oscar nominee for live-action short, and director Nacho Vigalondo would go on to make many more shorts usually in the sci-fi/horror realm including contributions to The ABCs of Death and V/H/S Viral (his most-known feature is probably 2016’s oddball monster movie Colossal). “7:35” doesn’t follow this pattern exactly, but it looks like it might have a fantasy element at the start and definitely flirts with horror in its climax.

This film succeeds in the way it builds and fills in information. A woman has unwittingly walked into an elaborate attempt to woo her by a long-time admirer. A charming premise for a romantic short! But there’s something disquieting about the set-up, even beyond what one would expect from an uninvited serenade during breakfast. The cafe’s staff and patrons freeze in place when they don’t have a verse to sing or a dance to perform, and they all wear nervous expressions. This is pretty unnerving even without the pile of cell phones.

The humor in this scenario, aside maybe from its extreme ending, comes from backwards engineering the minutes that led to a room full of sullen hostages performing uncoordinated choreography. The terrifying rush of rehearsals and the distribution of the verses and their order – this must have been a busy 7:00-7:34am.