I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A bored girl bumps into a giant living pencil with a face one sunny day and for a while she has a great time with it, drawing doodles of a cake and a kite that conjures the objects straight from her imagination into solid form and makes them appear out of thin air, but as it's revealed the powers of the pencil thing can be both a wonder and a weapon as she decides she wants a lollipop and draws a swirl that pops into existence as a cone-shaped black vortex that seems to draw her in, and she approaches it and it sucked into oblivion... This is a cool short for what it is, very different indeed! Rather than oppressive, I found the mood kind of light and breezy and carefree, with something sinister hovering at the edges that further comes into focus as the events of the short proceed. It's ethereal and beautifully shot, everything's so bright and lucid, it almost feels like a magical fairy kingdom type head trip, hardly like something horror-related at all, except that it does have a certain air of spookiness about it and I think I know why... Oh yeah, I know, it's gotta be the pencil, I mean it's bloody-well terrifying! You can't not look at it or ignore it no matter how hard you try. The hideous thing looks like a cartoon character that's become tangible somehow. It's always smiling with a creepy fixed expression that it never changes except for a tiny bit at the beginning when it moves its eyes as it notices the girl. It alone brings the horror element of this short if you asked me, if nothing else due to how unsettling its design is, that along with what befalls the poor girl! It simply *has* to mean something, but what? Well I think it could be an elaborate drugs abuse metaphor, but if you take it literally, the pencil is like a tempter, an evil genie who gives her a few nice harmless 'wishes' and then tricks her into drawing the method of her own demise, because as you see the pencil plants the images of what she draws into her mind a moment before she sketches them. Does it now have her soul? Is she now fresh lead for the 'magic' that will entrap further victims? I don't know but it sure leaves things with a spooky feeling. I love the effect of the rough drawings becoming real, it's pretty excellently done and is a very imaginative idea. It's a short that feels like it's half magical and half scary, and the two come together to make up a short that's quite unlike any that you've likely to have seen before. Do try to have fun with it, it's weird and kinda fun, silly and sinister, like the Killer Klowns From Outer Space.. And that's a damn good crazy old comic horror movie, and my head is tired so I'ma have to say so long.. You may never look at a pencil the same way again. Hell, they won't look at you the same either! ;D

A young girl finds a pencil that brings her drawings out in to the real world . Where have I seen that before ? Off the top of my head in the 1988 British ghost story PAPERHOUSE which was very boring and in the 2006 DOCTOR WHO story Fear Her which if not being the worst episode ever to have appeared since the show's return in 2005 is universally derided as the most boring one , one that felt like it was written on the back of a small notebook and then padded out to 45 minutes of yawn inducing television I can vouch that Christian Simmons has made a short film that is not boring in anyway shape or form . I thought he'd have a near impossible task of frightening me since the previous short I saw was the Italian animated short METACHAOS which was like dipping your toe in to Hell itself but PENCIL FACE managed to creep me out even more . A young teenager finds a giant pencil that has a face on it and if you find clowns scary you'll find this face rabidly traumatic . Simmons manages to bring a crushingly oppressive atmosphere to the film by using something so simple - the musical soundtrack which is eerie and repetitive and yet works superbly . It's impressive the way a director can do so much with so little and I'm more than a little surprised he hasn't been given more projects to work on . I don't want to overstate the case and say we might be looking at the next Darren Aronofsky but this is excellent spinechilling short movie with a lot of impact

A young girl is playing on some waste ground when she finds a pencil with a face. Whatever she draws with the pencil becomes real. Just an ordinary day.The word you're looking for is "unsettling". This is the word that the film aims squarely at and it is a state that it more or less achieves. The story is a simple one and, although the specific details remain to be seen, we know that this will end badly for the girl. We know this because the film very much plays to the genre of b-movie horror such as Chucky or the like. The face on the pencil is frozen into a permanent grin and has the sort of look on its face that to a child may not bother them, but to an adult it only looks creepy and wrong. This is played out under a score which only suggests creepiness and horror; OK it repeats too much for too long as a score, but it works for this.So the film works well as a reference to b-grade horrors because it gets the aesthetics mostly right and it is shot with a detached emptiness which could almost be a fashion shoot because Logan Link looks very much a model with her slightly awkward look and long thin frame (edit: just after posting this I decided to Google and yes, Link is indeed a model). The film doesn't really do much beyond this odd creeping horror feel. Others have tried to make the film be a comment on pedophiles or related topics, but this is a stretch and one the film itself never makes. Enjoy it for what it does well and it is good enough to carry the short run time even if it does have some flaws with repetition and lack of a slightly stronger ending.

Pencil Face is a little over three minutes long. In it, a young girl is playing outside and encounters a giant pencil with a face. No words are spoken; somehow, the girl intuits how to use the magic pencil. She picks it up to draw an outline of a cake, which then becomes real. She doesn't actually draw on anything. She just picks the pencil up and lines appear in the air. She then draws a kite, which also becomes real and we see her play with it for a moment. A repetitive musical cue plays over and over, creating a foreboding atmosphere. The camera lingers on the strange, smiling face of the giant pencil. You get the feeling something is going to go wrong. For her third attempt, the girl tries to draw a giant lollipop. However, what appears looks like a giant black funnel. It makes an odd noise, like the head of a timpani drum. She steps towards it, and is sucked in. The last thing we see is the smiling face of the pencil. I'm not sure if the filmmakers did this more as exercise to practice using special effects, or if they just wanted to make something weird and unusual. Some people will probably carry the image of that distorted pencil smile long after watching. It might be more appropriately be categorized as horror, rather than drama.