Rob Munday
For billions of people around the world, life without the internet is nearly unimaginable. Yet its impact – whether ultimately positive or negative – remains a topic of ongoing debate. At Short of the Week, we likely wouldn’t exist without it. In the world of short films more broadly, the internet remains a constant source of inspiration, especially for stories that explore its darker side. Neal Suresh Mulani’s latest short (Tell Me Something I Don’t Know), RAT!, falls squarely into this category, drawing from the writer/director’s personal experiences to craft a disquieting portrait of online life and its dangers, while also delving into themes of social envy and self-perception.
RAT! follows the story of a young music journalist who retreats to a remote house for some peace and quiet, only to unintentionally ignite a social media firestorm after criticising the identity of a global pop star. What begins as a sharp, satirical comedy quickly spirals into something far more sinister – a tense, unnerving home-invasion thriller. As the celebrity’s devoted fans go to increasingly extreme lengths to force the journalist to retract his video, the film explores just how dangerous – and absurd – the cult of internet fame can become. It’s a genre-bending tale that keeps viewers on edge, constantly questioning how far things will go, and how blurred the lines between online obsession and real-world consequences have become.
“It’s a movie that was very much inspired by how mean gay men are to each other on the internet”
When speaking with director Mulani about the inspiration behind the short, he describes it as born from a “deep-seated fear of the internet” – a fear shaped by his own experience as part of “the first generation to grow up with our lives memorialized in poorly worded Tweets, oversaturated Instagrams, and obnoxiously blunt Facebook posts.” But while RAT! taps into this broadly relatable anxiety about digital permanence and online identity, it also carves out space for something more specific – and sharp-edged. As Mulani puts it, the film is also about “how mean gay men are to each other on the internet,” offering a uniquely personal and pointed perspective on “self-perception, social envy and parasocial relationships within both online fandom and the queer community”.
By creating a film that’s both broadly appealing and strikingly specific, Mulani has made a short that is instantly entertaining and deceptively complex. It’s a deft balance of relatability and niche commentary, making it the perfect foundation for a feature-length expansion, which the filmmaker is currently developing. However, the fun, easily-accessible side of the short doesn’t come from the narrative alone. Mulani goes all-in on building the fictional world around his pop star, crafting a layered media presence complete with a full-blown music video, paparazzi footage, a This Morning-style talk show interview, and a slew of convincing magazine covers.
Mulani wrote, directed and stars (as Navin) in RAT!.
This meticulous attention to detail helps ground the film’s satire in a disturbingly familiar reality. And when it came to portraying the digital chaos of the internet, Mulani made a bold stylistic choice: instead of adding screen elements in post-production, they filmed actual computer screens live on set. The result, he explains, was intended to evoke “an accosting, experiential, frenetic portrait of the internet” – one that feels as overwhelming and inescapable as the online world itself.
One of the most striking and memorable elements of RAT! comes in the form of its oversized papier-mâché masks, featured in the fictional pop star’s music video. Made by production designer T Marsh, the creation of these surreal, bulky heads was no small feat – taking nearly two months to evolve from rough sketches to their final, uncanny form. At first, they seem like an eccentric but fitting visual flourish within the hyper-stylised music video. But their true brilliance is revealed later in the film, when they reappear in the home invasion sequence – this time worn by the assailants. The effect is eerie, surreal, and oddly hilarious, cementing the masks as a visual centrepiece and a clever thematic bridge between the worlds of pop spectacle and real-world horror.
While those giant heads may steal the spotlight visually, RAT! is ultimately a showcase for Mulani’s multifaceted talent. As the writer, director, and star of the film, Mulani once again proves himself a rising force in independent filmmaking. If you wanted more proof of that talent, the filmmaker is back in front of the camera in Rent Free – which premiered at Tribeca last year – and is also revising a feature-length draft of RAT!, while writing another queer horror-comedy feature for a director. Clearly, Mulani is just getting started.