A man evades relentless drones in this action-packed science fiction film

In a new short film called SENTiNEL, a man wakes up in an empty field and discovers that he’s being chased by a flying drone, which sets off a desperate race for survival.

That’s the premise behind Ryan Connolly’s intriguing new short film, which premiered earlier this week on YouTube and Vimeo. The film is really short: it clocks in at just under five minutes, but it lays out a gripping action sequence that reveals just enough information to hint at a larger story as it plays out.

At first, it seems as though the man is simply trying desperately to escape from his would-be killer, but Connolly flips those expectations at the end when the character discovers a rifle: it seems that he’s part of some violent game. It’s a slickly-shot short, and it shows that you don’t necessarily need dialogue to tell an intriguing story.

As a bonus, YouTube channel Punished Props filmed a behind-the-scenes look at how they built the gun featured in the film out of nothing but EVA foam, magnets, and pipes.