Dawn Brown wrote and directed delightfully creepy, bittersweet short film The Stranger. When Gloria (Holly Jeanne) meets a dark, handsome man (Ash Kahn) who helps pick up her fallen groceries, she’s delighted. She’s middle-aged, her life is lonely, and he is charming. When he can’t enter the house without being invited, she thinks on the recent disappearances of women in her neighborhood, and asks if he is, indeed, a vampire. He confirms that he is, but says he means her no harm and wishes only for her company. Gloria is faced with the proposition of a charismatic man paying attention to her instead of her solitude and must decide whether to risk her life by allowing him in. 

“…Gloria asks if he is, indeed, a vampire…”
Jeanne and Kahn deliver intense performances. They are subtle, but powerful sketches of the characters. Brown covers a lot of ground in the film’s brief 12 minutes, mostly banking on the cultural knowledge around vampire lore. She doesn’t need to explain anything about his constraints, abilities, or desires. She bends this well-worn trope into a wistful imagining of what life could be in Gloria’s wildest dreams, instead of the painful disappointments she’s lived with. Is it, in fact, better to burn out than to fade away? How bad must your life be to elicit sympathy from a vampire? In a spooky season, The Stranger is a lovely rumination.