House-Keeping

Directed by Nicholas Georghiou

2025

Elevate Film Collective

The sound of a noisy hoover is the unlikely beginning of a new film from first-time filmmaker Nicholas Georghiou. A short about domestic help, the film explores a strange situation in a hotel room where all is not what it seems.

Filmed in stark black and white, we are introduced to a maid on her room-cleaning run around a hotel where the unglamorous and monotonous job is laid bare with close ups of filthy toilets, used contraceptives and empty cans of lager.

Her trolley full of cleaning products is pushed around the long corridors, and thankfully the filmmaker shows her wearing some gloves, as she deals with the rank leftovers strewn around each room.

The sound of a scream breaks her from the drudgery though, stopping the maid in her tracks outside one of the rooms. Pausing to investigate, she tries to listen at the door before unlocking the room and heading inside to find out what awaits.

House-Keeping is a pleasing short that uses interesting camera angles, excellent cross-cutting and a monochrome palette to really help sell the film’s mystery. I was very surprised to hear this was the filmmaker’s first short. There’s a confidence here that is not always seen in even more experienced directors’ work.

Some Sam Raimi snap zooms alongside dynamic editing choices and unpredictable sound mixing also keeps the short fresh and engaging - building up the interest in an unpredictable way.

With no dialogue and an eerie score, the film sets up its suspense well and brings the audience along to question what may be happening behind locked doors in anonymous lodgings such as these.

Camilla Lloyd Moore delivers a suitable amount of intrigue as the put-upon maid, and discovers something shocking in the bathroom before finding herself in her own slippery situation.

If I were to focus on one area for improvement: the ambiguity towards the end could have been replaced with a clearer narrative conclusion as an audience may simply ask “what’s going on?”

A small change perhaps, but one that could help provide a more satisfying conclusion. However, I suspect this depends on the viewer’s own preference for either a neat revelation or leaving a little something to decipher. Ironically a second watch (arf arf) to view everything once more, goes a long way to clarify what seems to be happening.

From Bates’ shower room in Psycho to the ghostly goings-on at the Overlook in The Shining, hotels have provided a suitably peculiar location for tales of horror and secrets. And this film has influences, and even shots, inspired by both those films which was a nice cinematic touch.

House-Keeping therefore ends as an impressive first short film. It pushes its retro atmosphere to the forefront with nicely shot black and white photography and the 3:4 aspect ratio of old - as well as plenty of nods to films from the past. An easily digestible three and a half minute runtime but with a thoughtful premise to untangle, the film mixes voyeurs and victims together in an excellent twisty tale.

★★★★

4 / 5

Michael Sales

X @midlandsmovies