Sean Parker
For the final bit of Salem Horror Fest coverage, a week after the festival has now concluded, I wanted to bring readers’ attention to Conor Soucy’s electrifying short film, The Conduit. Winner of the Jury Award for Best Short Film at Salem Horror Fest 8, The Conduit is a taut, white-knuckle experience that utilizes the power of atmosphere in every way imaginable. From the lighting to the pauses in the dialogue, The Conduit is a nerve-wracking tale about a grieving father and the medium he’s hired to communicate with his dead son. From the first frame, you can tell The Conduit is something special, but when it’s finished, you’ll call it Frequency meets Insidious.
In the film a rich sumbitch with a very antagonistic name for a Salem film festival, Julien Proctor (Bob Higgins), sits across a hand-crafted desk from Jack Delwyn (Ethan Walker), speaking of unknown services that Julien seems reluctant to ascertain. Though the scene is set like a financial planning meeting at a millionaire’s mansion, the question of how Jack became involved in such a business offers the first clues to what’s about to go down, all while an ominous steer head looms over him, foreshadowing death. The audience remains a fly on the wall throughout, with dialogue that remains unassuming of our presence.
As the two carry on, the viewer is drawn to the scenery: multiple lamps and intense rays of natural sunlight shower the room. The place remains dim and warm, yet it’s hollow, somehow empty of life. The conversation begins to echo into the hallways, where Soucy shoots the reverberative discussion from the bottom of a spiral staircase, capturing the high wooden ceiling, decadent chandelier, and intricate wood framing adorned art piece. It’s almost ethereal, like the scene we’re watching is of events that have already taken place, and we’re witnessing a ghostly reenactment, and it draws you deeper into The Conduit. The level of dread is uncanny.
When we arrive back in the study, the two begin detailing a dinner party, a “celebration of life” to honor Julien’s son, though that’s a ruse to allow guests to show up unwittingly. Filling the home with friends and love ones will guide Julien’s son’s spirit back home, and at the height of the party Julien can excuse himself so Jack’s employer, a medium (Hester Wilkinson), can form a connection to the other side, allowing Julien to say whatever he couldn’t while his son was alive. Of course, this is a horror short, and nothing seems to go as planned.
Soucy and co-writer Zack Kampf craft wonderfully alluring dialogue with unique methodology, firmly placing the audience’s attention in a chokehold as The Conduit leaves you trying to catch your breath. The two go over the rules: no mentioning that the boy is dead, and don’t open the doorway to the space where the child died. The former can cause anger in the spirit, while the latter could cause the boy to cross back over, leaving him stuck and tethered to the house.
The Conduit then fetters around antiquated technology, a typewriter and a radio receiver with a BFO (beat-frequency oscillator) allowing for continuous wave and sideband signals. The medium acts as the input device, and the signal they intend to find is that of Julien’s son, but something else, something demonic, finds them instead. The film comes alive with macabre showmanship, creating a spectacle of horror through costuming and makeup effects as the trio makes contact.
I have to wonder if The Conduit is offering a proof of concept to fund something much larger, and honestly, I hope it does. This fifteen-minute chamber piece’s artistry, patience, and depth make it overwhelmingly haunting and deserving of expansion. Those looking for a similar scare can check out Andrés Borghi’s short film Behind the Door, which is part of anthology film 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession, and uses some very similar plot points. However, I do think The Conduit is the more intense experience.
The short film also prompted me to check out Soucy’s feature debut, Dead Whisper (free to stream on Prime and Tubi), and contains much of the same principled direction and cinematographic patience as The Conduit, a similar story, and even brief use of the same location. Both films also visually reference The Shining, The Conduit with some Room 237 adjacent vibes, and Dead Whisper with a ghostly bartender striking up a deal. Dead Whisper is undeniably Lovecraftian and will resonate with fans of Mickey Keating’s Offseason and David A. Roberts’ Older Gods, it also attends to similar themes as The Conduit as a grieving lawyer working a case, travels to a remote island off of Cape Cod where he encounters a demon that will reunite him with his dead daughter.
With a clever story and talent for days, Soucy’s direction of The Conduit is bound to propel him into the Hollywood eye, and the same goes for cinematographer Ben Grant, who perfects every nail-biting shot. The Conduit is that rare short film where you know intrinsically that every person involved is on a meteoric rise; there’s no lack of talent here. If some readers wonder why we continue to champion short films, The Conduit is your answer. In fifteen minutes, Conor Soucy gives you what many full-length films struggle with, and there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll be talking about big projects from him in the future.
The Conduit played as part of Salem Horror Fest on May 3 and May 4. The short film continues to tour the festival circuit.
