12th House is an abstract short from Ilona and Israel Laboy, a psychedelic menagerie of strange imagery which seems to hold a deep, personal significance for the filmmakers yet can just as easily be enjoyed as a simple barrage of the bizarre. The first few shots act as a rapidly ascending gradient into maximalism, beginning with an almost entirely grayscale shot of the main character walking in a daze on the beach, with barely perceptible accents of color in her makeup. More color is added with the introduction of a graffiti-laden phonebooth, standing as a monument of vibrance against the background of a dull gray ocean, before the film finally reaches a crescendo and embraces the visual aesthetic of psychedelic overstimulation which will characterize the majority of the short, with the setting transitioning from the black-and-white beach to what appears to be either a bar or restaurant drenched in multi-colored neon lighting.
