The best Lisa Chappell’s movies

In Crossbow the spoiler is right in front of you, there in the title. A crossbow is an anachronistic device and does not, at least in my mind, lend itself well to analogy or metaphor. In spite, or, more accurately, precisely because this ominous title hangs over the very start of viewing, the short film remarkably sustains a growing dread throughout its languid narration and slow-moving, though arresting visuals; maximizing its force not through the promise of surprise but through the inevitability of its conclusion.

A woman unable to conceive a child with her husband, despite years of trying, makes the drunken mistake of sleeping with a young stranger. The stranger then goes to terrifying lengths to prove his paternity.

In a town called Hope on the edge of Britain's empire, desperations clash: the beautiful Dorothea Brook is desperate to free her pregnant sister Rose from the clutches of Fraser, a fortune hunter. A local politician, William Poyner, is desperate for cash and thinks marriage to Dorothea will save him. Dorothea hires Lawrence Hayes, a rough but handsome Argonaut, to bribe Fraser with jewels and to marry Rose; Hayes desperately loves Dorothea and may marry Rose to stay close to her. But Dorothea has a lover, the ravishing Anne Cooper, who encourages the match with Poyser to give the lovers cover. Are these remedies, each desperate in its turn, going to make anyone happy?

A newly married detective and his pregnant wife move into their dream home unaware of its dark history. When his wife claims their baby is being tormented by a supernatural force and seeks the help of a renegade demonologist, he must investigate the past to save his family.

A thousand years ago, in England, the crazy monk Elmer wears a pair of wings and tries to fly from a high tower. He dies, and his soul is doomed to the eternity in hell for committing suicide. In the present days, in New Zeland, Elmer has the last chance to prove that men can fly and save his soul: his spirit enters in the brain of a very intelligent inventor, Jack Brown, and forces him to try to fly. Jack uses his last creation, an amplifier in a tape record, to succeed in the journey, but his invention is strongly desired by his former boss and his lover, who want to sell it to a Chinese investor. Jack's girlfriend helps him to accomplish his intent.