Did you people see the same film I saw?

Am I Missing Something?

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Abe...The psychotic robot...searching for someone to love him. Ha ha ha that is just so awesome! God... I wish that Rob McLellan will turn this into an actual Hollywood blockbuster or something because GOD KNOWS!!! it has the potential to be so. God... This short film is about to BURST of potential. This must be continued! Damn good short film. Really entertaining, deep and profound message. There's this profound need and desire for love and if not gotten then Abe here will go to incredible lengths to try anyway... Really symbolic, incredible psychological, disturbing and even though Abe is a bit of a fruitcake we can't help but to love him and feel for him for being so lonely in the world.Highly recommendable guys. This is good stuff. Once again, I hope to god McLellan will turn this into a longer film!

Did someone mention this feels like a pitch rather than a short film in its own right ? Just checking with both the IMDb and The Short Of The Week website it just so happens to turn out that writer/director Rob McLellan has been given the go ahead by MGM to turn this in to a feature length film . If we're being cynical then it's easy to state that this was indeed the agenda behind ABE the short film . Not to be entirely cynical it should be pointed out that a lot of short films use the exact same technique and when it's obvious like the Edward Snowdon inspired short VERAX boy oh boy it is too painfully obvious for words and if someone was standing at a street corner holding a begging bowl with a sign round their neck saying " Give me some money to make a feature film guv . I haven't eaten for three days " it wouldn't be any more cynical In its favour it does in grammar terms have a present continuous feel . By that I mean the actions Abe has started happened before the story started and are still continuing . Some suspension of disbelief might be needed as to why someone felt the need to build a robot with emotions and the fact a robot walking around kidnapping or at the very least stalking women might lead to police attention , but I guess if recent cases are to go by the police can't investigate any sort of sexual crime unless it's thirty years old . Abe does give away enough exposition to make the audience clearly understand his motives and they are believable to an extent . What ABE holds as a winning hand is the emotionless but effective vocal talents of Sam Hoare . Yeah a flat computer voice wreaking havoc while speaking calmly has been done many times before most famously in 2001 but here it works very well . I somehow doubt if the feature length version of ABE will be a massive success but here's hoping it doesn't pander to Hollywood by having lots of explosions and CGI

A familiar scene to horror viewers – a victim wakes up chained to a bed in a dark place, surrounded by plastic sheeting. Her captor comes in and delivers a monologue to her while toying with the knives which lay close by. It is nothing particularly new as a thing however in the case of Abe the lead character is a robot rather than a human. In the monologue we hear of his programming to love and his desire to achieve love back but at the same time he is frustrated because maybe he is not worthy of it, maybe he has no soul as others do but at the end of the day he is yet to find consistent love and the fault not being with him must be with others.Sometimes with short films you get the feeling that the maker is only interested in his piece in so far as it serves him or her; so rather than the film being made because the medium of short film is the perfect way to tell the story, it is done as a calling-card or pitch to try to get a bigger project off the ground. In theory I understand this and don't mind watching these but generally it must be said that the films that take this approach are generally not as good as those that set out to deliver from the get-go. This unfortunately is the case with Abe because it works better as a suggestion than as a whole; in fact if the structure feels like anything it feels like a pilot for a series because we get the introduction, we get interest in the character and we get the continuation as the conclusion. On this level it works and I enjoyed the genre style of the delivery and the writing, but only when viewed as a pilot.Watching it as a standalone you wonder why it didn't try to do more and why all aspects of it seem to be pointing to something else. Take away the goal and the animation and you have a serial killer scene the type of which Dexter has done for many years and not too much is added to enhance it as a genre scene. The sci-fi element makes it interesting and the monologue from Abe is good so it is enjoyable in that sense, just frustrating to have it be so specific and then open into nothing. Animation is very good though and Abe mostly blends well with the real world.Abe is a character I would have liked to see more of and I do think that this short could have been a pitch and a complete short with a more satisfying conclusion and delivery. It still works on its strengths but it feels like a pitch or a pilot and as such has weaknesses inherent in the approach; it is good I wanted to see more, just a shame that as a result the short feels like it fell short of what it should have achieved.

Undoubtedly, many will come to this short after having read that the visual effects artist/director has managed to secure a feature of the same name and idea. On that, kudos to the filmmaker. While the visual effects specifically that of our anti-hero, a robot, ABE, are great to watch - the short itself is lacking a story. I guess one could say this is a futuristic slice of life sketch and not a story; a 'character study' of a robot without a story. The edit helps the rather bland camera work and of course the post also went a long way to help create the sinister look. However, this story is hardly original and moreover fails in being compelling. One can foresee the character of Abe is what the studios bought into and will develop a 90-120 minute film around with many more characters for him to be unleashed on. Thumbs up to the visual artistry but am not convinced any filmmaker deserves to be the next big thing if they are incapable of story-telling.