WFG RATING: A-

A Michael Rich production. Written and directed by Michael Rich. Produced by Rachel Collins. Cinematography by Dave Cortez. Edited by Fred Norris.

Stars Burt Bulos, Jeff Doba, Nova Reyer, Stacy Snyder, Benjamin Hardy, and Jose de Jesus Martinez.

A new job opportunity for a content moderator becomes a nightmare in this short film from filmmaker Michael Rich.

Cole is a former systems administrator who after a year and a half has been given a new opportunity to do something different. Woking for Megavid, his job is to moderate content, flagging them for various reasons. Assigned to a certain queue, Cole begins to look and soon enough, the videos slowly become too much for him where it messes with his psyche. Will Cole be able to survive the night as the videos go on and on? Or will it be too much for him?

From director Michael Rich comes this very interesting short film in that feels like it could the way of The Shining or something completely different. It could even offer premonitions of films like Friend Request, Unfriended, Host, and any other technology meets horror film. This is more of a guy who finds himself more freaked out by what he has to moderate and it just gets to be too much for him.

Burt Bulos gives an excellent performance as Cole, who comes off as trying to make a living. While he enjoyed being a systems administrator, taking the next year and half off maybe meant he wanted to take time off from burnout or something. However, he gets this opportunity to become a content moderator and of course, the first video he sees is an adult ad before he finds himself watching even more disturbing content. One that includes what looks to be a PSA showing a man who all of sudden has a distorted face during certain spots and a woman torturing and killing a guest (audio only) amongst others. The finale is even more insane as it goes a bit left field but in a good way meant for this genre. 

The Queue is a very good film that brings out a great 180 performance from lead actor Burt Bulos as we see him go from excited to flat out disturbed in a matter of minutes. Definitely a short film worth checking out. 

The film has been playing in various film festivals.