Jersey Fresh is an experimental short film about a man’s last day of summer going unnoticed.
Special Thanks: Dave Rife
Official site
TRT: 2min 56sec
Additional notes: Made for The Film Shop’s Salute Your Shorts! A Night of Film and Music
What do a stripper, a pissed-off night manager, a death-obsessed grad student, and a ditched housewife have in common? They cry for strangers at funerals… and get paid for it.
A dark comedy about a motley group of part-time professional funeral mourners who are paid to cry for complete strangers by a dubious funeral director. However, when a familiar face is suffering, they fail miserably at what they should do best.
Short
Dark Comedy
26 min
Written & Directed by Zack Wilson
Produced by Lee Sacks
Co-Produced by Chris Spinato
I met her on Halloween
I was a skeleton
She was a rabbit
The thing about rabbits is
They’re hard to catch
Especially when riding a bicycle
That year, I got a bike for my birthday
We would ride
Soaring like lovebirds
And I still remember her hair on the wind
Always in the latest fashion
She would stand in front of the mirror
Naked
For hours
Weeping
I would stare at her body
She was beautiful
I tried drawing other figures
But she was the only doll for me
Her favorite thing was an old Barbie
“Kept it in an antique cedar chest,” she said
One night, I surprised her
And came over with a pendant
A lovebird
But she was gone
So I opened the chest
To put the medallion ‘round her doll
My love was inside
All curled up
She called me, “A gatecrasher.”
I called her, “My Pandora.”
She was an enigma
After that
I took the key to her chest
To her heart
That’s when she closed herself off
Shut herself in
Locked me out
She slowly disappeared
But never faded away
Legend says a true skeleton key
Can unlock anything
Except my bicycle bunny in the box
That will never open again
This skeleton key doesn’t work…
Lost lore of a lass a seldom soul knows
Most melancholy misery mixed with more woe
Thou countenance considers, curiosity flows
Mystique and intrigue so steadily grows
For message and moral thy tale whilst show
Why winds whistle and blow, bellowing, “Scarlet Rose!”
She, pale as marrow in beauty, yet blessed
Flaxen hair, skin fair, ne’er sun caressed
Vanity vacant, detached and depressed
O’er agony asunder, aghast, Oh! Obsessed
Pricking edges of thorns ‘gainst ivory flesh
Whilst ruby blossoms bash thy bare breast
Now, lost in the night, or so it doth seem
Orb bound in flight, illumining beams
Sleeping in spite of disheartening dreams
She screamed at thy sight; crimson on cream!
Betwixt of thy blight, red on white, still she screams
“Oh! What a sight! And still it doth stream!”
Lying in life, feeling foolish, a kern
Choking and coughing, her stomach doth churn
As hands clasp her throat; clocks tock and turn
Time fleeting and bleeding, she yelps and she yearns
The memories resurface, resound, and return
Reminiscing doth she, her heart starts to burn
Twas in the mid of summer’s day
Her lover beside her, in fields they lay
Glorious rapture, both blissful and gay
When suddenly something somewhere would stray
He’d flee; She’d be bleeding and broken, betrayed
As sun turns to tempest, her light fades away
Yet before his depart be dismal and dour
He turns to sweet Scarlet in this; their last hour
For inside of a moment, the present is power
And future, though fleeting, he fixed with a flower
Said he, “I’ll return to thee Ivory Tower.”
Then left her alone amongst icy cold showers
Now, lonely and lost within mental abyss
Nebulous nothings that cease to exist
Mourning and moaning of memories missed
In agony and anger hands clenched in a fist
Screams pierced the air; thorns pierced thy wrist
Forgetting the future of fate with a twist
As sanguine Scarlet closes her eyes
Tears sting her soul, which ne’er can dry
Flooded with fantasy, lost within lies
Lamenting illusions, grieving goodbyes
In this early evening, she withers and dies
And Scarlet rose to the Heavens while the scarlet rose cries…
TRT: 4 min 21 sec
