CRITICALITY

**CRITICALITY** is an analog horror short film created by Alex Casanas on his YouTube channel MISTER MANTICORE. It is about Louis Slotin, a Canadian physicist and chemist who took part in the Manhattan Project. He is famous for dying in the infamous 1946 Demon Core criticality incident.

## Synopsis

The video begins with an animation of a small, glowing, metallic, ball (possibly the Demon Core) rolling across a red background. A quote from Austrian-American psychoanalyst Theodor Reik appears, reading;

It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes.

The title appears, over a black background, with the audio of Louis Slotin (played by Alex), saying that he's been a cowboy his whole life. It then transitions to an image of a library, which briefly fades out to an image of Mantioba, with the caption;

MANTIOBA, CANADA

before fading back to the library. An image of a man with his hands on his head, which is resting on a desk with books surrounding him is shown, before fading to an image of a pile of books, with the top one being 'The Cowboy'. An image of a man with his eyes closed appears, with images of cowboys riding horses briefly appear. It then cuts to an image of Louis Slotin.

The scene then abruptly changes from a blue filter to an orange filter, this time showing illustrations of cows a photo of Louis Slotin appears, paired with a couple of other images showing that he's drawing random cowboy-themed images. Another series of random images play out the story of Louis Slotin getting involved in a bullfighting accident.

A new scene, this time with a red filter, shows live action video footage of a wounded Louis Slotin opening a door and entering a room. He washes his bloody hands in a sink before the camera filter changes to an aqua color with footage of Louis in the shower. The red filter returns again this time over images of men reading and writing. The red filter slowly turns to aqua as Louis's name is spelt out on screen over an image of Louis Slotin.

The scene once again cuts back to the blue filter showing images on men in showers. More live action footage appears, this time of Louis's hands outstretched in front of the camera. The camera footage has a weird glowing circle in the center of it. The hands interact with the glowing circle, making it's light dim every time a hand passes under it.

The scene then changes, this time to a purple filter, showing an image of an olden-day library. Another image of a stack of books appears, this time consisting on books titled 'Auras and Blindness', 'Medical Encyclopaedia Vol. 1 (A-B)' and 'Blindness and Remedies'. This implies that Slotin is reading them, which it turn implies that the glowing circle from before had to do with Louis's eyesight. It cuts to images of Slotin reading a book interspliced with images of a man watching him. Louis looks up and makes eye contact with him. It then cuts to an animation of Slotin (colored in blue) chasing the man (colored in red).

Slotin asks the man why he is watching him, to which in turn man asks Louis what happened to his face (Louis's face is heavily wounded). Louis replies saying that it was caused by bullfighting. The man replies "So you're a bullfighter?". After a brief pause, the man exclaims "Bullshit" before punching Louis onto the floor. The filter changes to indigo showing a photo of a man lifting up Louis by his foot.

The scene then returns to a blue-filtered camera showing a man (possibly Louis) laying outside resting his back on a building's external wall. The camera then briefly cuts to an image of a building before showing an image of a man (also possibly Louis) laying in bed. The man wakes up with a frightened look on his face, clutching the pillow. It then briefly cuts to another image of a stack of books, with titles like 'Radiation', 'New Physics' and 'Atoms'. It then shows an image of a man laying in bed with another man who is reading a book. It once again cuts to an image of a man looking at another man, before showing an image of two men kissing on the lips homosexually.

The scene cuts to an orange-filtered scene. It starts off with an image of Louis in flannelled clothing before showing a herd of cows in a paddock. A silhouette of Louis walks past the cows and giving them the middle finger. It cuts to a brown-filtered image of an envelope laying on a bed with the words;

THIS CAN'T HAPPEN AGAIN I'M SORRY

written on it, labelled with the initials L.S.

A boxing bell sound effect plays and it cuts to several blue-filtered images of boxers boxing. The words;

LOUIS SLOTIN WINS BOXING CHAMPIONSHIP

scrolls across the screen vertically in red text and the blue footage fades away into orange footage of a cowboy riding a horse. It fades to black and the end card shows, reading;

C R I T I C A L I T Y: Historical Fiction by Alex Casanas (Music by Philip Glass).