Flashback



A young yoga instructor named Jess and her boyfriend Scott are both attacked and killed in her apartment during a home invasion. As she begins to see her life flash before her eyes she realizes that with enough concentration that she can relive those moments, and desperately attempts to change the course of history to try to save her boyfriend from a tragic fate.



Flashback is a quick horror short that I found available on Netflix. Which is odd enough by itself, since that service isn’t really known for showing shorts, but it’s also new, which I find equally odd. But hey, maybe they’re branching out. That’s a good thing. What’s not such a good thing is that it’s one of those movies that the service only gives a very vague description of, plus the “mood” the movie elicits, which is something I’ve found to rarely be a good sign when it comes to Netflix films. Any time those summaries say something along the lines of “based on”, “eerie”, or “starring *insert actor I may or may not be familiar with here*” and then fail to give an actual description of the film, I tend to get burned. Fortunately though, this summary actually did give the move a proper description, so I decided to give it a go. I mean, the film is less than 20 minutes, so even if it sucked I figured it wouldn’t be too painful. And lo, I’m happy to report that it in fact does not suck and is actually pretty good, even though I don’t think it’s nearly as “eerie” as Netflix likes to claim (Seriously guys, please stop overusing that word. At this point I don’t think it means what you think it means.)



Flashback is listed as a “horror”, with words like “eerie” and “chilling” thrown into its descriptors for good measure. But the short is actually much cuter than any of those words suggest. The creep factor comes in the form of a gnarly looking “grim reaper” type of character that Jess keeps seeing in her peripheral vision…and is also kinda linked to the cute plushie, that’s based on a local urban legend named “Doctor Bones”, that she keeps in her room. So, creepy, but also kinda not. The bulk of the movie though really focuses on Jess and her relationship with Scott, and ultimately her determination to save his life and how she attempts to go about that. So really, the movie is more like a very sweet love story about how far someone is willing to go to protect the ones they love, just with the ominous visage of death constantly hanging over the two main characters. Which isn’t nearly as creepy as it sounds, but I’ll admit it does have its moments.



On a technical level the film is great. It sounds great, it looks great, it’s clear that the shots were carefully planned out, the imagery is effective, and even in its darker lit moments you can still clearly see what’s going on at all times, meaning they had a decent camera and knew how to light their sets, so *two thumbs up*. The acting also works for what’s presented. With such a short time-frame to work with there’s really unlikely enough time for the viewer to truly be “wowed” by anything they see, but it’s good and gets the job done. And if you have a Shudder subscription, you might even recognize Jemma Moore and Haley Bishop from 2020’s Host, and Amar Chadha-Patel from Disney’s Willow TV series, amongst other things.



Really, the biggest issue I have with the film is a small one, and it involves Jess’s motivations. Not so much why she’d want to save her boyfriend, I get that, but more so why she chose that particular time in her life to stop at and go the route she did, when she could have conceivably picked another way that wouldn’t have disrupted quite so much of her life. I mean, I kinda get that she was panicking and maybe on a time crunch, so she probably wasn’t thinking 100% clearly. But when you think about it, she really ended up going with the nuclear option. Which I guess can be viewed as more “romantic” if you want to look at it that way, because it does end up saving Scott. But I’m really not sure what her choice does to prevent a burglar from breaking into her home and shooting her, unless she somehow managed to come back a day earlier from her time traveling adventure and buy some extra deadbolts to install on all the windows and doors. I’m still a smidge confused on those plot points (as well as how the hell Yoga breathing can in any way be utilized as an aid in time travel), but if you don’t think too much about things like that like I do then those moments probably won’t bother you.



So, beyond a couple of nitpicks, Flashback is a pretty decent short. My only real complaint is that Netflix says the film is 16 minutes long, when in reality it’s actually closer to 10, with around 4 of those minutes being taken up with useless, annoying ads at the end of the movie (Why? Just…Why?). But ignoring that little deception the film itself is good and uses its time well and ends up being entertaining, even if a lot of the concepts it uses aren’t unique. So if you’re looking for a love story with some creepy undertones, and you’ve only got a few minutes to spare, consider giving Flashback a chance.

Flashback is available to stream on Netflix.

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