Imagine for a second you’re about to attend a corporate presentation. The numbers which are about to be presented are magnificent. Sponsors and all other contributors will get excited about the prosperous future. But then, suddenly things go wrong in a way that leaves the room alive, but some parts of the body will be missing. Insane, isn’t it? But trust me, what you will be seeing in “Heartless” is much worse than any sane mind can picture.
Shelby (Stacy Snyder) is seemingly hardworking, intelligent and has everything to complete another productive day at work. Matt Mercer (Deano Ross), Blaine Vedros (Brandt Childress) and Ron Morehouse (Tripp Flynn) are having a great time in the meeting room anticipating the upcoming meeting scheduled by Shelby and Joanna Sotomura (Clare McKaskill). The problem is, Joanna cannot attend the meeting due to one reason – she was brutally killed the other night by one of the individuals sitting in the same meeting room.
All three men are having quite an open discussion. They already went ahead by talking about the personal life of their employees, using unpleasant language in the office, and when Shelby entered the room, they treated her as a coffee girl. Not only that, they used jokes Shelby was not in the right mindset to accept. Of course, what all those men didn’t know about her is what happened last night, the night before, or the voices she hears inside her head. But at the some moment, the secret she hides in her mind will come out of darkness, threatening not only Shelby’s already shattered mind, but everyone in the room as well.
It is when through flashbacks we learn about Joanna’s fate, her devotion to stay alive as long as possible, and Shelby who does not really fit into the title character. She might as well be having a heart or maybe not, but it’s still too generous to call her that as she deserves even less. And the entire argument begins over the numbers that were about to be presented in the meeting that were not quite accurate. And due to Shelby’s fear that she can be replaced or fired, she decided to take the axe and kill the problem like nothing ever happened.
In the end, “Heartless”, perfectly portrayed, is a funny and a gruesome horror movie at the same time. While some scenes are unbearable to watch (at least for me), I am sure many horror lovers will find amusing and quite entertaining. And the killing scene, especially, was done tastefully, was realistic and horrifying. Directed by Kevin Sluder and inspired from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the film explores the nature of a tragically damaged human being who, unfortunately, knows how to use an axe. But it is the mind of Shelby that is very fascinating, who, with the right treatment, could have been a much better person, but, what happens without it is something I wish nobody ever gets to witness.