The Devil’s Harmony (2019) dir. Dylan Holmes Williams

This clever and playful take on the high school revenge trope is qualified for this year’s Academy Awards after receiving numerous prizes including a Jury award at last year’s Sundance and the Directing prize at Fantastic Fest. The second short film by British director and editor Dylan Holmes Williams, The Devil’s Harmony announces a new talent in genre cinema. Through eerie and composed visuals, the short follows a bullied teen and a capella singer as she leads her troupe on a melodic rampage through suburbia. Williams set out to make a riff on the classic 80s/90s American high school films, co-writing the script with England’s NFTS alumni Jess O’Kane. He wanted to play with the genre while giving it something a bit blacker and bleaker. Inspired by Gus Van Sant’s Elephant and Rian Johnson’s Brick, Williams looked for places that could fit a “fluorescent-lit, otherworldly aesthetic”, similar to these films.