The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon
Encyclopedia
The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon is a 10 minute film short that was released in 2008. It was filmed entirely in California over the course of 22 days. It was written, directed, and narrated by Richard Gale. The weapon referred to in the title is a spoon.
The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Austin Fantastic Fest, the Best Short Film award at the Fant-Asia Film Festival, and the Citizen's Choice Award and the Grand Prize for Short Film at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival
, and was named the Best Short Film of 2009 by Rue Morgue Magazine
.
It was shot on a budget of $600, on a Panasonic HVX200 digital video camera and edited on Final Cut Pro
.
Then the movie starts to show the story of a forensic pathologist called Jack Cucchiaio (Paul Clemens, cucchiaio means spoon in Italian), who finds himself being haunted by a deranged looking man (Brian Rohan), who is, without any clear reason, hitting him with a spoon. No-one seems to believe this, however, since the mysterious attacker shows only up when Jack is alone. Jack is seen developing a phobia of spoons, stirring his coffee with a fork.
At one moment, Jack tries to defend himself with violence, stabbing the murderer in the throat with a kitchen knife. To Jack's surprise, his enemy turns out to be immortal, pulling the knife out of his throat and throwing it away, in order to continue hitting Jack with the spoon. However, Jack has noticed a strange sign on the arm of his attacker.
Jack travels to the far east, where he learns that his attacker is known as the Ginosaji (Silver spoon), an immortal, unstoppable being. After this, Jack is shown traveling around the world, trying to escape from the Ginosaji, or to fight it. He uses various weapons, including dynamite, guns, and an RPG. Since the Ginosaji is immortal, however, he will always survive and find Jack again. The last scene shows a weakened, wounded Jack, crawling on the ground of a desert, with the Ginosaji still hitting him. Then, suddenly, the spoon of the Ginosaji breaks. However, just when it seems that there is any hope for Jack, the Ginosaji opens his jacket and shows dozens of spoons, from which he takes one after which he resumes hitting Jack. Finally, the title and credits are shown, in typical trailer style.
Another Sequel, Save Jack was also released in the form of a game in which the player has to choose what Jack Cucchiaio should do, choices involving wearing protective clothing, using a giant magnet, giving it a hug or kicking it in the crotch. All of these choices backfired horrendously, making the situation more tormentingly difficult.
The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Austin Fantastic Fest, the Best Short Film award at the Fant-Asia Film Festival, and the Citizen's Choice Award and the Grand Prize for Short Film at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival
Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival
The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival , or PiFan, is an international film festival held annually in July in Bucheon, South Korea...
, and was named the Best Short Film of 2009 by Rue Morgue Magazine
Rue Morgue Magazine
Rue Morgue is a Canadian magazine dedicated to covering "horror in culture and entertainment," taking its name from Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."...
.
It was shot on a budget of $600, on a Panasonic HVX200 digital video camera and edited on Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X, runs on Mac personal computers powered by Mac OS X version 10.6.7 or later and using Intel processors...
.
Plot
The movie itself is presented as being a trailer for a 9 hours long movie. It starts with a voice-over, telling the viewer that: "some murders take seconds; some murders take minutes; some murders take hours; this murder... will take years!".Then the movie starts to show the story of a forensic pathologist called Jack Cucchiaio (Paul Clemens, cucchiaio means spoon in Italian), who finds himself being haunted by a deranged looking man (Brian Rohan), who is, without any clear reason, hitting him with a spoon. No-one seems to believe this, however, since the mysterious attacker shows only up when Jack is alone. Jack is seen developing a phobia of spoons, stirring his coffee with a fork.
At one moment, Jack tries to defend himself with violence, stabbing the murderer in the throat with a kitchen knife. To Jack's surprise, his enemy turns out to be immortal, pulling the knife out of his throat and throwing it away, in order to continue hitting Jack with the spoon. However, Jack has noticed a strange sign on the arm of his attacker.
Jack travels to the far east, where he learns that his attacker is known as the Ginosaji (Silver spoon), an immortal, unstoppable being. After this, Jack is shown traveling around the world, trying to escape from the Ginosaji, or to fight it. He uses various weapons, including dynamite, guns, and an RPG. Since the Ginosaji is immortal, however, he will always survive and find Jack again. The last scene shows a weakened, wounded Jack, crawling on the ground of a desert, with the Ginosaji still hitting him. Then, suddenly, the spoon of the Ginosaji breaks. However, just when it seems that there is any hope for Jack, the Ginosaji opens his jacket and shows dozens of spoons, from which he takes one after which he resumes hitting Jack. Finally, the title and credits are shown, in typical trailer style.
Sequel
A sequel, Spoon Vs. Spoon was later released on YouTube, in which Jack takes on the advice of a viewer to fight back with another spoon, this unfortunately backfired as the Ginosaji took away Jack's other spoon, and mercilesly used the second spoon for double-hitting. The Ginosaji has since used dual weapons with two spoons.Another Sequel, Save Jack was also released in the form of a game in which the player has to choose what Jack Cucchiaio should do, choices involving wearing protective clothing, using a giant magnet, giving it a hug or kicking it in the crotch. All of these choices backfired horrendously, making the situation more tormentingly difficult.