Channeling aspects of both science fiction and horror, Kitchen Sink is a provocative yet minimal short fiction film. The narrative begins simply with an everyday chore in an average setting which escalates into a dramatic day very quickly. This blandness is enhanced by being filmed in black and white, which then transitions into being suspenseful/mysterious, supporting the narrative throughout the film.As a woman pulls an umbilical-like strand from her kitchen drain, the suburban dream is shattered into nightmarish proportions. While she was once intrigued and interested by what was hidden beneath, when she sees the alien fetus emerge she is frightened and disposes of it. It appears as if this opening implies the deterioration of suburbia or repression of abnormality.The woman's fear however is not long lived. The fetus grows into a man, indicative of the natural cycle of life (despite him being "alien") from the womb into the world. Her disposition is altered by his nonthreatening presence. The woman's loneliness may be exemplified here by her eagerness to form an attachment to something abnormal to her. Yet, the woman exhibits a motherly attachment to the man rather than a sexual one. At first their relationship may appear sexual seeing as they are alone together and sleeping on her bed. Her tenderness comes across as she tends to him, instead. It isn't until she falls into her repressed desire when they embrace that her world becomes threatened for acting on her feelings that can be interpreted as incestuous, or against societal norms.The film's ending can also be interpreted as a commentary on perfection. The woman chooses to shave him completely of his hair to make him appear more normal. This allows her to become more comfortable with his presence. She rejected his existence once because he was far from being human. Shaving his hair not only allowed her to mother his metamorphosis into a human/man, but it also allowed her to fulfill a fantasy that was previously denied. In the end she attempts to pluck out his last piece of self from his neck, which ends in either his and her destruction or the beginning of a new cycle similar to his emergence from the sink drain.

Kitchen Sink as domestic space--obvious, but true. A woman finds a strand of hair in her sink and pulls out a baby who turns into her partner, and the cycle of life continues from there. The black and white photography and the title had me expecting kitchen sink realism, and I wasn't too off on those initial assumptions if you mix it with a Twilight Zone episode and slight J-horror flavor. The woman is at her best when advancing, the horror always happens when the man advances. A low-dialog film, the story is told pretty expertly with images and the pacing is quite acute, which helps keep this short apart from similar ilk. They also cast this movie well as that is one strange, alien looking dude they got to spawn from dirty bath sludge.--PolarisDiB

A woman pulls an unspeakable fetus out of the bowels of her kitchen sink.In the tub of warm water the fetus starts to grow until he is the size of a full grown man.Suitably creepy and weird horror short.The monochromatic cinematography is stunning and the score by cult Kiwi band The Headless Chickens adds a lot to the atmosphere.The use of sounds is exceptional as the film is almost dialogue free.It's certainly a study of suburban loneliness and neurosis with the creepy feel of David Lynch's "Eraserhead".It won Best Short Film in the NZ Film & Television Awards and Audience Award at the Sydney film Festival in 1989 and is currently available on "Crush" DVD.

Man... I was just a kid when I saw this first time. Still gives me the goosebumps just thinking of it. I re-discovered it just now, thanks to the internet and all. Didn't even remember the name of the movie or anything. Man... I was just a kid when I saw this first time. Still gives me the goosebumps just thinking of it. I re-discovered it just now, thanks to the internet and all. Didn't even remember the name of the movie or anything. OK, that should make the minimum of 10 lines of text, I hope. So let's just keep on spouting out words and words and words and some more words. What? Not enough? Words, words, words, a word.