This year has seen my belief in god go away. That doesn’t stop me, though, from totally digging the mythological aspects of different religions. Take, for instance, angels and demons. They show up in almost every religion: this notion of good and evil, always fighting for little ol’ us. Even if you feel unloved, some supernatural creatures are duking it out over who gets you (I now want to see an angel and a demon throw down over Facebook comments to win my favor as I judge their responses for both sick burns and ass-kissing compliments). Bearing that in mind, here’s Paul Hough’s short film The Angel.

I will be upfront: the fight scene felt inappropriate. It was a little too Matrix-y for the rest of the tone. That being said, the beginning was spot on: sickly hospital lighting led to a sense of foreboding. We knew that there was something wrong here. If you’ve ever walked alone down a hospital corridor, even if it’s well-lit, you’ll know that there’s a sense of death and illness. It makes sense to put the action of this film in a hospital; they’re creepy enough to begin with, and, logically, the best place to stage a war for a soul. Speaking of which, I loved that the angel was not winning any beauty pagents while the demon was beautiful by comparison. That typically shows up in mythology too, as a type of lesson that the good folks of the world are going to be more battle-scarred (literally) while the beautiful thing is not to be trusted.

Happy Saturday.