Beneath the Sea It Sings: A Horror that Foregrounds Telling

Bryan Enk’s Beneath the Sea It Sings is a 12-minute horror that works like an audio play, centred around the recollections of a woman who found a ghost ship and lost everything in the aftermath. 

The film is structured almost exclusively in claustrophobic closeups that are yet eluded by Keller (Julia Kolinski), though not quite because she wishes to preserve her mystery. Instead, it is as if a partial glimpse is all we can stomach of this extreme closeness to things we do not understand and are lucky not to experience. 

Kolinski quite simply carries the film where editing is minimal, shot variations are minimal, and absolutely no other character exists on screen. The fun part of it is the sound design. It gives Kolinski a (much needed) hand but dips enough that if this were a relationship, Kolinski would not be unjustified in resenting it. 

Her monologue sustains itself with variations in emotion and enunciation. Rage and regret play as two sides of the same coin. Keller is angry at herself for having heeded the musical call of “The Song of the Sea” that led her to board the abandoned ship with her crew, and at the creature in it for having made the most of it. 

But her anger is more often incredulity, recalling and attempting to give coherence to an essentially irrational chain of events. Incredulity gives way to tired resignation, and confirms what we already guessed. But the final shift—into a light derangement still marked by tiredness—is what buoys the film after the first flairs of the soundtrack. 

Beneath the Sea It Sings is an interesting experiment in emphasising the power of telling in place of showing. With the constraints it sets for itself, the film robustly produces discomfort as its primary feeling. And because it abstains from resolving it, Keller’s eyes may just follow you around for a while.

Watch Beneath the Sea It Sings Horror Short Film