Earworm

Directed by Ethan Whyborn

2026

InVitro Productions

*POTENTIAL SPOILERS*

Earworm is a psychological short film written and edited by Ethan Whyborn. No doubt inspired by a plethora of addiction-focused movies like Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, Whyborn’s impressive score undercuts everything that is done well.

Its ambient sound makes use of heavy reverb from guitars and synths, which helps establish an eerie sense of dread throughout.

The main character, Sam, Timothy Mylechreest, starts the film off by visiting his doctor, Bary Smith. The doctor, as is often the case in films about addiction, is dismissive to Sam’s problems with sleep.

Sam, deprived of any solutions, then takes matters into his own hands with black market drugs.

He works in a café, and has a close relationship with Mia, Chloe Nicholson. Although the film was no doubt limited in terms of budget, it would have been nice to see their friendship developed a little more over the 18-minute runtime.

Sam’s boss, Del, Harish Gogna, did a good job of harnessing the tyrannical cruelty of customer service managers to their underpaid staff.

In between the increasingly infrequent lucid scenes, there is a surreal nature that overlays Sam’s torrid efforts to sleep in his room, lit ominously red. Whilst Sam is trapped in this confined space, the film’s score is once again able to work its magic paired with these visuals.

It would have been interesting to see the surreal elements of the film dialled up another notch as Sam starts to derail.

In its best moments, Earworm captures a modern sense of directionless dread. Sam has a job he clearly doesn’t care about, where he and his colleague Mia are treated poorly for little reward. Despite this, Sam is a mysterious character who we know little about. Perhaps because of this, the script feels a little rushed and underdeveloped.

A mad descent into drug addiction is a complicated and difficult topic to broach, but it did feel as though Sam lost his mind too abruptly.

At the climax of the film, Sam and Mia are at the café when Sam’s ear starts bleeding. Here, the throbbing, almost metallic, industrial-like soundtrack reaches an exceptional crescendo. As the camera zooms in on Sam’s despairing face, the ‘earworms’ are discarded, forgotten, the damage already done.

Earworm is a strong directorial debut, no doubt filmed and produced on a shoestring budget.

With a slightly more fleshed out script, it will be exciting to see what direction Whyborn goes in next.

★★½

2.5 / 5

Jacob Poole