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DISTRESSING IMAGES

By Sam DAWE

Drama - Completed 2023

A content moderator for a social media site begins to suspect his young son is hiding violent tendencies when their family pet is mysteriously wounded.

- Year of production
- 2023
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- UNITED KINGDOM
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 15 mn
- Director(s)
- Sam DAWE
- Writer(s)
- Sam DAWE
- Producer(s)
- Matthew STEGGLES (Blue Cedar Productions)
- Synopsis
- Distressing Images blends the heightened world of extreme online content with a very banal parental fear: “what if there’s something wrong with my child?”
  
  ED COLLIER works from home as a content moderator for a popular social media site. He spends his days sifting through flagged content — candid camera fist-fights, grainy amateur porn, etc — while his wife ABI looks after their new baby Elsie and their six-year-old, OSCAR.
  
  The film opens with Ed stumbling upon a particularly disturbing snuff video depicting a man being burned alive. As he writes up his referral, he’s preoccupied and leaves his study unlocked. When he returns, he’s greeted by the sight of his infant son watching the gruesome execution.
  
  Though Oscar doesn’t seem outwardly affected by the video, Ed is cautiously concerned for him nonetheless. Despite this, after some rueful consideration, he decides to keep the incident a secret from Abi.
  
  Over the following days, Oscar’s apparent lack of emotional response to the video eats away at Ed. Is this normal? Surely he should be traumatized by something so violent and visceral?
  
  This anxiety is drastically compounded when their family cat is found mysteriously wounded - apparently set alight - and Ed spies Oscar hiding guiltily nearby.
  
  Abi suspects disturbed neighbourhood kids and Ed can’t bring himself to confide his fears to her. Instead, an insidious paranoia takes hold of him and he can’t shake the conviction that Oscar is hiding violent tendencies.
  
  He obsesses over his son’s internet habits, watches him constantly for signs of guilt and is gripped by fears of Oscar harming his infant sister if left unsupervised.
  
  This comes to a head when Ed reacts violently to a minor bit of misbehaviour from Oscar, culminating in a vicious row between Ed and Abi. His paranoia is driving a wedge between them.
  
  It’s only when Ed glimpses Oscar in the throes of an awful nightmare that night that he starts to come around. He takes the boy’s distress as a delayed response to the video — proof that he’s “normal” after all. Their bond finally seems on the mend.