Horror Short Film 'Fishwife' | ALTER | Online Premiere

In wild 18th century Britain a lonely woman discovers that her menstrual cycle is of interest to a stranger.

"Fishwife" by Beth Park

#ALTER #horror #shortfilm

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"Fishwife" Credits:
Beth Park - Director
Beth Park - Writer
Beth Park - Producer

Scarlett Brookes - Cedany
Charlie Beaven - Lir
Shango Baku - The Familiar

James Oldham - Cinematographer and Colourist
Pollyanna Elston - Production Designer
Michelle Tsen - Editor
Zac Mcfadzean - Original Score
penelopeVFX - VFX
Adam Fair - VFX Director
Adam 'Ace' Kaczmarek - Character Rigger
Xavier Canute Nao Gibbons - Character Modeller and Animator
Helena Restall - Make up Artist
David Gennard - Stills Photography
Aliona Baranova - 1st AD and Movement Director
Sandra Coulson - 1st AC (interiors)
Dean Keague - 1st AC (exteriors)
Chris Sarginson - Gaffer
Seah Hotson - Sound recordist and sound designer
Tatsujiro Oto - additional sound design, foley and mix
Amanda Richards - Seamstress and catering
Nathan Silverwell - runner and driver
Luke Reichel - runner

Special Thanks:
Thomas Richards, Jo Richards, Harry Richards, John Sanderson, Miles Moulding, Lucy Barnett, Nathaniel Barnett, Dorian Bowden, Tom Majerski, Kay Munn, Andrea Elston, Jonathan Elston, Monika Craig, Wren Silverwell, Richard Park, Friends of Cwmorthin Slate Quarry, Costume Hire from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Equipment Hire from No Drama and Tracks and Layers

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[CoralineJonesPinkPalace]

This one had the most beautiful scenery and countryside aesthetics. You can feel the cold darkness and isolation. This is visual storytelling and now it's a favorite. I absolutely love me some folk horror.

[HybridSquidGirl]

After clicking "show more" there is a list of characters Cedany, Lir and the familiar. So Lir is the welsh god of the sea, The familiar must be working for Lir, and Cedany is the woman. Sorry for typing the book, this is just my interpretation.

So you have Cedany who's on her cycle and she seems like she's pretty lonely based on context clues. It's even stated that she lives a good while from civilization. So Familiar sees her blood rags and probably took them to show Lir who was most likely trying to do the Zeus thing and yanno.. procreate. Days pass and Lir appears as a human who fell into the water and needs some help. It's very unassuming. I thought that maybe he was rich and he was "humbled" by her home etc. Anyway, I'm not sure if it's for everything but there's a rule that says that things can't come into your home unless you invite them in. He's invited in and you can kinda see that while she's comforting him while he's sick it's like.. the most human interaction she's got in a while (or that's what I got) Lir sees she's very kind b/c of the food and water offering but he still came to do what he had to do and then he bolts. So time must have passed and You can see he's been feeding her.. or the fish on the porch hint that someone left it for her. Like prenatal child support. Near the end, she's very much pregnant (maybe in labor) and I think that the Familiar was actually on his way to come and take the baby whether she wanted him to or not and though context clues I think that she knew that too... so she sneaks up and kills the guy before heading to the waters edge to let Lir know that she killed his familiar and that she's still there and still pregnant.. and he definitely knows it. I think that Lir was going to take the child by force which is why he tells her that he didn't want to hurt her and that' most likely because of her kindness.. But I dunno.

But that's just me and my interpretation. Very spooky and fairy tale like.

[joeyj]

When I hear people talk about "getting back to nature" I just smile. It's hard work and isolation. It's lonely for most. You really captured that. Very good film. It told an interesting tale, as well.

[pancanidae]

Cool bit of folklore. The thing he coughs up is traditionally called a "mermaid's purse". It is a shark eggsack.

[DittonWilson]

I have read through these comments trying to get a better grasp on the main story . I think there are a lot of good comments here. I interpreted the scene with her eating something bitter and holding her hand over her stomach as eating bitter herbs to still the life inside of her. That makes the whole end scene a scene about her outsmarting Lir and thwarting his plans.

[JessicaN]

Why are all these shorts I've been watching WAY better than any big film I've ever seen? Just amazing!

[jimmcgibbits]

I absolutely love the atmosphere and the pacing of this short. The play with light and dark was astounding and the long shots of the scenery was hypnotic. Please keep making more of these.

[KymberlyStewartMusic]

This movie is eerily wonderful. Great cinematography, scenery, and acting. No jump scares or scary images, just isolation and bleakness: something we realize could be our reality. Well done, Beth Park!

[ireneharto]

So good! I never thought of an old menstrual period counter before...we need a part 2 to see the fishbaby!

[silver_crone]

Love love this one! The details, the silence except when she's with him, that smile on her face at the end - this is art that reached in and stays with me ♥

[lisalahey-fx]

Love the "father" emerging from the waves for the birth and how she smiled at him/it/her. Kind of cute how he was feeding her too.

[victorialambertson]

Try not to overthink the movie and accept it for what it is an artful, creative masterpiece.
It deals with loneliness and isolation. Everything she longs for is right outside her front door. The creature, who was getting to know her intimately as she washed her bloodied clothing in the water desired her.
Either through her desire or his, he was able to manifest himself into human form simply to impregnate her with his egg. He showed up explaining he did not want to hurt her. Left fresh fish for her outside her door daily. Not a bad start. 😊

[pbintoau]

I loved the triple goddess design on her menstrual calendar

[michaellee]

absolutely captivating. did she cast a spell, attracting her young lover/attacker? Seems like washing her bloody clothes in the lake was meant to signal her fertility, and she kept a close calendar afterwards... so many questions. Wonderful Film. Bravo!

[observationsfromthefencepo]

This film was very atmospheric with a lot left to interpretation. For me that made for a fascinating viewing. The music was spot on for this story and the build up was creepy and disturbing. I also found sadness in the whole thing too.

Here is my interpretation and it is by no means definitive.
We see the woman is on her monthly cycle as she is washing blood out of her clothes and she appears to be tracking it on the circle peg board. She is either a widow or the last of her family isolated in a homestead away from town. I think she never married but always wanted to and was likely shunned from town folk for some reason. She sees the old man but does not communicate. I think he represents the town or the outside world. She is seen later dressed nice and dancing as if wishing she was not alone. She sees a shadow and runs to bed. She then hears the knock on the door. It is a man in distress. (At this point, I want it all to be legit. But this is a horror story.) She extends help. He says he doesn't want to hurt her yet sexually assaults her with something he coughs up and then runs away on all fours retreating into the sea. (This conjures up a variation of the Kelpie mythology. This is my opinion) This was my favorite part as it was so unexpected and pulled off exquisitely.
The woman finds herself pregnant. Close to delivery she is seen with a knife. At this point, I am thinking of forced abortion or killing after delivery. Both horrific. Instead she kills the old man as if she is shunning the town and outside world and then she goes to have a sea delivery with the young man in his true form (like a Kelpie) waiting in the distance with her becoming a fish wife. Whew.

It was a Beautiful build and as mentioned the atmosphere was spot on. The actress was fantastic and the cast all did well.

Great work by Beth and her crew for a beautiful period piece. I really mulled over this one and studied the Kelpie mythology. At no point could I stop watching and I watched it more than once to get my thoughts straight.
Thanks.

Peace

[simonl]

This is one of those movies where the writer/director has left a lot of space for us to use our imagination in order to make sense of its story telling. I think for some viewers the spaces might feel too far apart for the movie to make sense, although its visual aspects might be enough to get us through to the end.

SPOILERS BELOW



It starts with us getting closer to the surface of a lake (tarn?) but we cannot see past the surface to what might be underneath. Then we meet the Woman, living in solitary isolation, cleaning her menstrual fluid in the lake, that we see is next to her house. But is she washing it, or is she planting her scent into the water on purpose, to advertise her fertility, and to attract something? We don’t know. Inside, she marks another day on a wooden calendar, which probably helps keep track of her menstrual cycle. Shortly after that an older man is seen looking at her bloodied undergarment. Did the woman leave her bloody clothing outside her house on purpose in order to attract someone? Again, we don’t know.

It is night, and the woman is fantasising about dancing with someone, pretending to flirt. (It is this scene that helps us see that the actor is very beautiful, something that have purposefully muted in the film to make her look more plain and weary.). A man, completely wet, he tells us, from having just got out of the lake, asks to come in. Somehow, in the casting they have found someone who actually does look a bit like a fish. He coughs up a hook. Is this a lure laid by the woman? Is he a fish she has been trying to catch? Again, we don’t know. He scrambles to take off her dress and then penetrates her, somehow, with something. We then get the first clear moment in the movie as to the universe it is creating: he runs back to the water and along the way morphs into something non-human: he is Fishman. Time passes (I think). It seems she no longer needs to catch fish, as someone (or something) is leaving her fish at her door. We then see she is pregnant.

Then, and at this point you might think this is not possible, the movie becomes even harder to make sense of. The pants-sniffing man from earlier returns with what seems a Moses basket and chains. I think when he was sniffing her clothing before he realised that she was going to be spawning something and wants to get whatever it is, but for what reason, and either benign or malignant, we do not know. The woman grabs a knife and leave her cottage by the back and then moves around to the front of the house where she can attack the man from behind. As she penetrates him from behind with her knife, we get, as a one-second flashback at 15:17, her being penetrated from behind sexually by Fishman (at least, that’s what it seems to me). I think she kills the old man, and in doing this a looming threat has been nullified (perhaps). She goes to the lake and enters the water on all fours, a bit like what Fishman did before scurrying off before. As she starts to submerge herself, we for the first time see something come up from the surface of the water. At last: an answer, perhaps? Just as you think we might now get some sort of explanation, the movie ends.

As for what all this might mean, I have no idea. Maybe the film is critiquing the isolation that women pregnant with an illegitimate in history — and today — have had to unnecessarily endure because of a controlling patriarchy. But I might be completely wrong with all of this.
(Edited to include spoiler alter)

[relm.]

The atmosphere, ambiance, the cinematography, the photography, the acting. All in all, it's brilliant!

[louisianaboyjames]

I always liked independent films more than Hollywood films. Hollywood is highly overrated.

[gsurveil]

My gosh, that was breathtaking! How you wove a beautiful folklore tale I'm gobsmacked! I'm truly looking forward to what you do next Beth.

[jewelhaines]

This has a H.P. Lovecraft feel about it. Very well done! 😊