Portrait of God
Directed by Dylan Clark
Starring: Sydney Brumfield
Channel: Dylan Clark
Uploaded August 28, 2022
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Watch our review on Portrait of God
Stills taken from Portrait of God (2022) Review by Hamp Overton
Logline: A religious girl must come to terms with her faith when she analyzes a provocative painting of God.
“No man shall see Me and Live”, Exodus 33:22 is how we begin this slow burn and truly creepy cosmic horror film. This Old Testament statement to Moses implies that no human can look upon God and survive, which gives us an idea of what is in store for our heroine in this YouTube short.
Set in a small screening room, teenager Mia Reilly, practices a PowerPoint report she has made on a painting titled “Portrait of God”. The issue is, the painting is nothing but a black screen in a frame. Mia and us, the audience, don’t see anything. But then she plays comments of people that say they do see something. It is described as frightening, but ultimately beautiful.
After the comments Mia asks the question, ‘Why does God appear to them and not us?’ ‘Us’, of course, includes the viewer.
This is such a great concept as it literally makes us part of what is about to happen.
Mia then resets her cell phone timer and begins the presentation again, only this timeshe does see something when viewing the black frame. Two very faint glowing dots. Possibly eyes? They grow brighter and as she approaches the screen, a disturbing shape begins to appear. Clearer and clearer until it suddenly turns towards her. She flees the room but mysteriously ends up in a dark void of space.
The creature’s eyes can be seen in the distance of the black void as Mia stands under a bright spot of light. As it approaches and gets closer it is always just out of focus. Mia turns away, clutches her crucifix and prays, then a cruel looking hand grabs her chin and, almost gently, turns her face back to the creature. As she looks on in terror, the creature pulls its mouth open to an impossibly large amount and a point of light appears deep in the back of its black throat. The light glows brighter and brighter and Mia, tearing up, begins to softly smile.
Cut to Mia and she is back in the screening room, staring at the screen, but now her smile is gone. Instead, she looks like she is in a trance, fixated on the blank, black screen. Tears are stream down her face as she grasps her necklace crucifix so tightly that blood pours out between her fingers. We see her cell phone stopwatch, and it shows that over three hours have passed.
Mia has a similar fate to those in the film franchises Candymanand The Ring, but what sets this one apart is grounding it in the concept of the Old Testament. This quote gives the film much more gravitas and the viewer may ask themselves, is this true? Does such a painting exist?
In a tight seven and half minutes, the film wastes no time in establishing the concept and pushing the viewer into the nightmare Mia will have.
If you enjoyed this short, you’ll be glad to hear that in December of 2025, it was announced that Dylan Clark will be making a feature version of this film with horror greats Sam Rami and Jordan Peele set to produce.
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