Cool Horror Videos: The Space Between Us, similar to The Shape of Water

In case you haven't noticed from the articles we've been posting here on Arrow in the Head recently (like my HELLBOY vs. HELLBOY II Face-Off that went up yesterday), director Guillermo del Toro has a new movie out called THE SHAPE OF WATER. The film is currently playing in select theatres and just expanded to some more today, with a nationwide release coming up on December 22nd.

I haven't had the opportunity to see THE SHAPE OF WATER yet, but AITH's Eric Walkuski has, and gave it a 9/10 review. What I have seen is a short film called THE SPACE BETWEEN US, and this seemed like a good time to feature that short as a Cool Horror Video, because I'm told it's quite similar to THE SHAPE OF WATER.

The two films have different settings – THE SPACE BETWEEN US is set in a dystopian 1980s – but they do share some stylistic and story elements.

Written and directed by Marc S. Nollkaemper, THE SPACE BETWEEN US has the following synopsis: 

1983: an atomic war has polluted the air and raised the sea level to such a height that it reaches the mountaintops. Mankind tries to survive with the help of oxygen masks; breathing from tanks on their backs.

High up in the mountains they have built a research centre in search of gills suited for mankind, so they can breathe freely once again and start a new life under water. However, they soon found out that they needed a gill different from the species known to man. They had to find the most human-like creature of the sea: a merman, which they called, a sea ape. The Scientific theories about these sea-apes were not much different from the fantasies or the fairytales about the mermen. In the end, it was accepted that this sort of beast could never be found. So the research continued, without any directions, without any real hope. They just kept “researching”, cutting into every species they could find. Trying to make it work while knowing its impossibility.

But then, one day, when all hope seemed to be lost, the ‘Adam’ is brought inside: the savior of mankind.

The cast includes Elsa May Averill, Kiefer Zwart, and Adrian Brine.

Even without comparing it to THE SHAPE OF WATER, THE SPACE BETWEEN US is a really good, well made, interesting short that's worth spending 13 minutes on. It's just a bonus for those of us who have to wait to see SHAPE that watching SPACE can fill some of that waiting time.