Recently a friend at work introduced me to Oats Studios (or sometimes called Oats Labs) and their short 25 minute science fictions films. It was just mentioned in passing conversation whilst discussing general geekiness, and then that was the end of it. It was only whilst I was waiting for a flight back to England that I suddenly remembered it and started to read into them. I was on limited data so I couldn’t watch them at the time, but the more I read about them, the more eager I got to watch them. When I finally did, I was not at all disappointed, and if you haven’t watched them yet then I would totally suggest doing so.


But first, a little of how they came to be. So Neil Blomkamp (director behind District 9, Elysium, and Chappie) decided to set up a new film studio following the failed success of Chappie. Personally I love Neil Blomkamp’s work. District 9 is an absolutely amazing film that really put Sharlto Copley on my radar. Now I will watch anything with him in.
I really enjoyed Elysium. When I first saw it, I thought it was better than District 9, but when I rewatched District 9, I realised that I couldn’t have been more wrong. Elysium itself is a good bit of Sci-Fi, and although some people didn’t enjoy it (even Blomkamp himself said he doesn’t like it), I still found it a very enjoyable film.
As for Chappie, personally I thought that this was the weakest of his films (and obviously it was due to the fact that he decided to move onto this Oats Studio project because of it), but at the same time, Chappie is not a particularly bad film. I think I really enjoyed the overall world story, but not the story Blomkamp chose to set the film around. This is exactly the same problem Blomkamp had with Elysium, and it is clear that, like myself when I actually get down to some writing, he has the ideas for the world in which it is set, but maybe not so much for the overall plot of a film. This is why the short films by Oats Studios are perfect for his creative style.
Regardless of this, it is a shame that Blomkamp’s Alien project (with Sigourney Weaver herself) was cancelled due to Ridley Scott and his god awful Alien: Covenant film. With the premise of Hick’s and Newt’s return, as well as being a direct sequel to Aliens, we could have had a fantastic piece of sci-fi on our hands. Oh well. It was never meant to be.

Anyway, after Chappie, Oats Studio was created with the intention to distribute short films via YouTube and Steam, in order to gauge the community for interest as to which of them are viable for expansion into feature films. They are free to watch online, so you have no reason not to go and watch them. The idea is that you can purchase DVD style extras online, such as artwork and makings of, and that is what helps fund the studio.

Now there are five smaller shorts on there, but these are more jokey few minute videos, most likely just trying out different directing techniques. I have not personally seen these because of this, but I may give them a watch. One is titled “God: Serengeti” and it stars Sharlto Copley. The other four films are “Cooking With Bill” and apparently are suppose to be quite amusing.

But the point of Oats Studios are the longer 25 minute sci-fi films that they have created; Rakka, Firebase, and Zygote. Each one is completely different from one another and leave you wanting more, either more information behind the story, or just more of the film in general. One more film is apparently due out later on called “Lima”, and is supposed to be a current-day thriller, but given how much the other films are very science fictions, I can imagine that this one will have a nice twist to it. I may even write a mini-review once that one comes out. These four films together build up the anthology of Volume 1. So I am interested to see if any develop to becoming larger feature length films, or if he will create further Volumes of unrelated shorts. Only time will tell. Onto the three films themselves.


The first short is titled; Rakka, which apparently means “Fall” in one language and “Man” in another, so the “fall of man” and that is pretty much the theme of this short. The film is broken into three chapters. The first one tells the story of how it came to be. It tells us that Earth has been invaded and taken over by a race of alien reptiles with telepathic powers. They have created enormous structures for which they experiment and torture humans within. Meanwhile the last surviving humans are desperately trying to fight them in a classic “Resistance” style. Although it is a concept that we have seen a few times before, the actual delivery of the short is fantastic.
All of these are big budget by the way. You watch any of these shorts and you can imagine it being a fill length film. Rakka even stars Sigourney Weaver in it, and so it is clear that after Blomkamp’s Alien project fell through, they were still eager to work together once again.

The second chapter of Rakka focuses on two of the main characters. From what I could father from the information given, one is a former arsonist or bomb maker who makes weapons, explosives and items the resistance needs, such as some head gear that is able to help against the alien’s telepathic powers. He seems like a rogue type and works by himself mainly.
The other character is a former alien experimented human, who seems to have some powers of his own (but unfortunately we don’t get see them in the film).

The third chapter of this short focuses on the resistance, lead by Sigourney, taking down an alien ship and fighting against the reptilian within. It was an exciting battle with a few twists.
By the end of the film you are eager to find out what the experimented character’s powers are, or what he is capable of doing, as well as where the resistance goes from here.
Rakka feels very similar to Blomkamp previous films (the depressing sci-fi set in desert towns) and so it is a good introduction for people into the Oats Studio’s shorts.


The next film is Firebase. This one is a little bit weirder compared to the other two. After you have seen this short, you come away wondering more on what it was truly about. It leaves much more questions than it should, but in the same way it does leave you wanting more. Although it leaves a lot of unanswered questions, the entire film is a massive explanation of the film’s main antagonist; the River God.
The short begins as strange recorded footage during the Vietnam War. It shows vehicles floating unnaturally about, as well as dead bodies with their skin being peeled back easily to see something inhuman beneath.
We then cut to the main character; an American soldier during the Vietnam War, as he explores an enemy underground base. He is attacked by, what appears at first to be a zombie, but after blowing him up with a grenade, it reveals itself as some strange cockroach-type person. It is clear that the protagonist is searching for someone.

The film then cuts to a little bit later on and the main character has met with a shifty smug CIA guy, who explains to him the man that the protagonist is after. It shows the antagonists origins and the strange powers that he has, such as creating a suit of armour made up psychically by body parts of fallen soldiers, as well as mutating humans into these strange cockroach powers.
The CIA guy and the protagonist meet a burned soldier who recounts his run in with the River God during a battle against the Vietcong. It seems that during the battle, the River God transported him to an alternate dimension where Russia have become super advanced during the Cold War. It is a strange scenario that eats up a bit of the films run time needlessly.

By the end of the film, the protagonist is preparing for his CIA black operation to go after and kill the River God, who is clearly giving the Vietcong the edge over the war. It is a very interesting concept that could have easily benefited from a little more explanation, or at least a little deliverance. Overall the film is good and still enjoyable, but personally it is the weakest of the three.


The last short, that has been released at this time, is Zygote. This is my personal favourite and right bit of me. This one is a straight up Sci-Fi horror (one of my favored genres) and is basically the last 20 minutes of a film. When the film begins we feel as if we have missed so much of it already, but the two cast members quickly bring everyone up to speed in a natural way (if not a little confusing as to what the hell is going on).
The film is about a mining facility in the Antarctic quite a few years in the future. It seems that humans use androids to do all the dangerous mining work, and the humans basically watch over them. There are (were) 98 people in this facility, some androids and other humans I am assuming. It turns out that these mining facilities are set up to work on asteroids that hit the Earth, though this is never explained, I have to find this out by reading it online.
Anyway, the point is that they found “something” inside the asteroid and now it is killing everyone and only two people remain, one android (played by Dakota Fanning) and a male human. It is revealed that Quinn (the human) has cut his eyes out to avoid suffering the same fate as the original person who discovered the thing inside the asteroid.

Whatever the monster is, it has killed everyone but these two. They find themselves locked inside a bloody mess hall as Quinn teaches the android how to use a weapon (since he cannot see) and gives us a bit of confusing back story behind the events that have already taken place. He then tells her what they need to do in order to escape.
After a while they decide to execute their plan and escape into the snowy outside between the bases. As they traverse the dark, you can hear something inhuman roaring out behind them somewhere. When they get inside the other base, we catch our first glimpse of the creature. After that the film takes a more action turn as they try and fend it off and desperately attempt to escape it.

I won’t go too much into the monster itself, as it is a sight to behold. I did watch a YouTube explanation of it, and I must admit that I did not hear any of that during the film. The story is so convoluted and needlessly confusing, compared to just having an alien, or a monster buried in the ice. If Zygote was made into a full length film, then I will be okay with the in-depth story behind the monster (even if it is still a little strange), but for a short it feels needlessly complicated and could have easily used the time for better use.
Overall the film was quality and I would personally love to see Zygote made into a proper film. The monster was quality and genuinely terrifying, and the overall story was quite interesting, as well as the twist that they threw in (which fell a little flat given our time with the characters has been short, but I can imagine that in a longer film, such a revelation would be perfect).


So hopefully by now you have either watched these three films, or at least taken a bit of interest into them. I really suggest you go away and watch them on YouTube and, if you can, support this great cause.
It has inspired me to get back into writing, as I wanted to do a science fiction story, but I had so many ideas. Seeing these has made me want to do an anthology of different short stories of my own design. So if anything, watching these shorts gets your creative juices flowing.
Be sure to check out any future releases from Oats Studio with Lima coming out sometime soon.

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