“Young Sarah Roth has long been haunted by the memory of her mother abandoning her. Determined to overcome this troubling vision, Sarah employs old science and secret rituals to recreate her mother anew. Beyond the formulas and fantasies, however, lie truths she would rather not confront.”
The Many Monsters of Sarah Roth is written and directed by Justin Haden and stars scream queen Kaylee Williams, Eytan Lasca, Rachel Flink, Eric Hunicutt, and Julie Granata.
I was able to pick up The Many Monsters of Sarah Roth when I visited Kaylee William’s table at Blood On The Beach this past weekend. It was such a pleasure to finally meet her. She is so sweet. However, there were two things I did not anticipate about this film. 1. It is a short film just under 11 minutes long. 2. Despite having “monsters” in the title, it really has nothing to do with horror. I would classify this more as a fantasy film with slight scifi elements. These elements come in the form of Sarah’s ideas at recreating her mother which include electrocuting dolls like a mad scientist and performing ancient Wiccan ceremonies. It almost seemed like Sarah was trying to make a Frankenstein copy of her mother.
The script is quite wordy, but I think this is probably because there is a lot of subtext or a lot of themes in the film that I just didn’t pick up on. After a weekend full of horror and driving for 13+ hours, my brain was fried. But, that doesn’t mean this short film was bad by any means. It was actually pretty good for indie film and it did contain some impressive production aspects. I found a scene in an open field to be very well done and frankly beautiful. Kaylee Williams is as charming as always in the film, which makes her character very likable despite her lack of grip on reality. She was the perfect choice for the role of Sarah.
