Written, directed, shot and edited by Russell Wyatt Roberts, Room 8 follows a grief-stricken man in need of work.

He soon takes on an mysterious assignment from an anonymous online benefactor, involving an eerie corner, inside Room 8 of a rundown motel.

The short film is now available to watch below.

by Russell Wyatt Roberts:

I didn’t plan to make a horror film.

I was in Pingelly shooting a corporate video. We were staying at the Pingelly Retreat Motel, and the place immediately unsettled me; the rough exterior, the dated 1970s carpet, and especially one corner of my room that felt strangely recessed, as if the architecture itself was pulling away.

Something about it stayed with me. I wanted to document it somehow. A photograph. A short story. Or both.

That first night, after the crew had finished for the day, I wrote a short script on my phone. The idea was simple: a man answers a vague online ad offering cash to film a specific corner in a motel room. I already had the location, the camera, and – after a quick text – my boss’s approval. All I needed was to convince a tired crew to keep working.

Miraculously, they agreed.

Ben Nockolds, our sound recordist, stepped in front of the camera. Mick Garrett, the real one-armed caretaker of the motel, somehow said yes as well – his first time acting. We had three or four hours, a shot list written over dinner, and a room that already felt charged. We shot the film that night.

Six months later it screened at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival. Room 8 is a short film about a corner that got under my skin. I decided to archive it the only way I know how.

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