The PAntry: Haunted House and Paranormal Horror in Bite-Sized Short

Ervis Zika’s The PAntry is a seven-minute paranormal horror film that follows a dark chapter in a woman’s relationship with her home. Working with the most minimal setup—an actor, a mask, some lights, and one location—the film is noteworthy for its building tropes of dread with so little. 

Sina-Valeska Jung plays Emily, a woman alone at home with a relaxing evening of cooking and music ahead of her. The camera frames her within the limits of the doorway, effectively limiting anything else we might glean from her home about her. It is as if she is marked as a target from the outset and thus everything else is pushed aside as irrelevant. The soft music from the system is about to be overwhelmed by unease as mysterious knocks begin to plague the house. 

Jung plays well with her only co-actor, an elaborate Venetian mask—already unsettling, now freed to put the Paranormal Activity in pantry. It seems to want out of the humble, utilitarian space (an odd place for a mask, and presumably even more offensive for a malevolent entity capable of making things move) where it is hung up on the wall such that it confronts you with claustrophobia and other horrors on its mind. The camera makes most use of the space, making it feel considerably smaller than it is, small enough that it feels as though you will hit the walls in one thoughtless move. Throw in a few jump scares, and the film frequently gets the better of you (it is why anyone loves horror). 

The PAntry leaves its ending heavily implied, meaning that it is ripe to be imagined in every way that makes the story most interesting to its audience. Whatever Emily had planned to cook will certainly have to be put on the back burner.