After a little embezzlement by financial business person Sam Larson (Eric Lange) leads to the suicide of Sam's boss (Ray Wise) - who rather ironically was also the person who put the whole idea into his employee's head -, Sam goes on the run, driving across the USA in the sort of blind flight across highways that has never ended too well in any film.
At night, the broadcast of a religious nutcase radio station turns into a sort of emergency call, pleading for anyone hearing it to come to the station and help out with some sort of medical emergency.
Sam's not planning on answering the call, but ends up at the radio station regardless. Inside the building, he finds the aftermath of a fight (though strangely enough no bodies) and a man, probably the DJ/preacher (John Billingsley) handcuffed to a radiator. It is obvious that something terrible and deeply strange has happened there.
David Prior's AM1200 is an excellent short film of Lovecraftian horror, not terribly original as a piece of its sub-genre, but really thriving on the quality of its execution.
Its professionalism in every technical aspect alone would be enough to elevate it above a lot of the "independent horror cinema" (read "some misguided dudes -and it's always men - with a digital camera and fake entrails trying to sell their home video as a movie") I keep complaining about. This is an actual movie, probably not an expensive one, but still one with professional level acting, excellent camera work and lighting and people behind it who give a damn for the end product of their struggles.
It is quite admirable how much the film's script trusts its audience to be able to think, keeping info dumping and explanations as far away as they belong from cosmic horror.
Instead, Prior effectively builds a mood of dread and keeps it up throughout the forty minutes of runtime, which is exactly as it should be in this type of film. There's not much else I can say about the film - it simply does what it sets out to do in excellent fashion.
And for once people interested in an independent horror film don't have to wait for a distributor to snatch a film only to keep it away from a possible audience until its existence is forgotten - Prior sells the DVD on his website.
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