'Intinction': A Gruesome Good Time {Short Review}

There’s one simple reason why I wanted to watch writer/director Bobby Canipe Jr.’s short film Intinction. It has cannibalistic nuns. Yes, cannibalistic nuns. As you can probably tell by now, this isn’t a film that takes itself too seriously. It’s gruesome. It’s gory, and most importantly, it’s fun.

The film follows four friends, Mark (Blair Hoyle), Ralph (Ryan Martel), Scott (Hunter Touboulie), and Roxie (Whitney Willetts). The group visits an abandoned house with a haunted history. Sure, we’ve seen this premise several times before. It’s like an old campfire tale, with Mark serving as the storyteller. One brutal winter, nuns resorted to eating each other. Apparently, their hungry spirits still linger. The short does quite a good job balancing the present with the past, establishing its own history surrounding the nuns and that fateful, nasty winter. These flashbacks are especially fleshed out.
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Canipe Jr. cites splatter flicks like Burning Moon and Night of the Demons as some of his key influences. That’s certainly evident here. There are sequences where nuns devour each other’s fingers and munch on each other’s necks until their habits are blood-soaked. Some of the effects here look cool, especially when the nuns attack the friends in the present day. Kudos to the make-up team. These sisters look gnarly and downright spooky. Even though the director draws inspiration from 80s and 90s horror, this isn’t a film awash in nostalgia. There’s no synth soundtrack or references to films that only horror nerds would catch. This short stands on its own, set in the present day.

If I have one gripe, it’s the acting. Some of the lines are delivered in monotone fashion, and there’s not enough distinction between the friends. Ralph is the only exception simply because he’s the comedic relief, clenching a six pack and sporting a hat that says, “I love titties and beer.” If this is ever turned into a full-length, and I hope it is, there needs to be more time given to creating fully realized characters. 

Intinction is a schlocky good time, a short that succeeds at entertaining. I’d love to see this turned into a feature, especially so the four main characters can have their own personalities and distinctions. While his influences here are clear, Canipe Jr. crafted his own story set in the present. I’d love to see how far he can push the gore and effects with an even bigger budget.
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Author

​Brian Fanelli fell in love with horror movies the first time he watched Night of the Living Dead as a kid. His writing on the genre has been published by Horror Homeroom, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Signal Horizon Magazine. He is also the author of two books of poems, Waiting for the Dead to Speak (NYQ Books), winner of the Devil's Kitchen Poetry Prize, and All That Remains (Unbound Content). His non-horror writing has been published in The Los Angeles Times, World Literature Today, Paterson Literary Review, Pedestal Magazine, and elsewhere. Brian has an M.F.A. from Wilkes University and a Ph.D. from Binghamton University. Currently, he teaches at Lackawanna College.