Ramone Menon’s short film Virgin is a fantastic twist on a well-known story. 15 minutes of pure horror excellence that still manages to remain thoughtful as it is engrossing. A must-watch short.

A man (Herman Gambhir) and his pregnant fiancée (Jessica Damouni) are travelling and looking for a safe spot for the night. A tension exists between the two, all the while a dark presence is following the family, with dark intentions, for this is no ordinary family, and the unborn child is no ordinary child.

Asking the question of what if the story we were given in the Bible was the safe PG version, and the actual trials and tribulations that our Miryam and Yosef go through were much more horrific. Controversial? Perhaps, but it’s a concept that is both effective and worthy of discussion. Rather wisely, Menon doesn’t try to stoke any severe fires and is, in fact, somewhat true to this part of the story and to the strength that Miryam had at this time. But damn if that finale doesn’t have you terrified for her.

The fact that we have a film that also delves into the struggles that Josef went through, a man whose young fiancée is pregnant, not by him, is engrossing. You understand why that one line of “Who is the father?” keeps coming up, and that we see guilt and worry with her and repressed anger in him, forces us to be on the edge of our seats. With that underlying tension in place before the thought of a beast following them arises, Menon simply has to intensify the relentlessness of the terror to engage his audience.

With Virgin, Menon allows for us to ask if what we are seeing is really a beast from Hell coming up to capture the unborn Jesus, or is it in fact all of the insecurities, jealousy and doubt that is riddled within Josef that has finally cracked and making this haunted demonic house (well barn) film more of a psychological domestic thriller. Menon is having a whale of a time playing in this world and asking those questions to his audience. It works a treat as well as we are all in on what he is posing to us.

Gambhir and Damouni are excellent and do some great work as our famous characters; we automatically feel for Damouni’s Miryam due to how she portrays that guilt and worry of what is next for her. Couple this with the anger permeating through Gambhir, and we have a cracking story.

There are some great choices throughout Virgin, be it the subtitles that are not just plonked down at the bottom, but float around in whatever deadspace is around our characters. It importantly creates a great visual impact and really makes the audience pay attention to what we see on the screen. Again, you can see visually how much Menon is having and yet, he wants some form of realism in this tale. Our characters speak Aramaic; the finale has historical pertinence.

The fact that this isn’t a quick gimmick of a film and that genuine thought and care have gone into the actions of its characters (especially Josef) is integral to the success of a short film like this, and boy has Romane Menon knocked it out of the park here.

In the end, Virgin is that one retelling of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem that works so marvellously that you shouldn’t be surprised to see an influx of religious horrors of this ilk pop up in the future. From beginning to end, Menon’s film is simply fantastic.

★★★★★

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