Embrio is an experimental short film made entirely by Jean-Sébastien Monzani (story, direction, film, and music), with acting by Stéphanie Schneider.
What draws me to Embrio is its quality of implicit horror, conveyed through the actor’s subtle, ever-changing expressions and the eerie, intense, atmospheric soundtrack. Sans a conventional narrative, Embrio explores the compulsions, fixations, obsessions, and psychological reactions of a young woman, and, though very well-composed, it also has a rawness, depicting naked sensations and emotions with all the vagueness and ambiguity of good psychological horror – all within a clean, bright, well-lit, nearly sterile environment. It draws us deeply, physically, into the experience of the woman, and gets under our skin.