Nails on AllMovie

A haunted hitman whose violent career has taken a toll on his mental health turns to trepanning as a means of relieving his growing anxiety in director Andrey Iskanov's haunting horror short. As flashbacks of his former victims flash before his panic-stricken eyes, a troubled gun for hire reads a detailed article on trepanning (a process in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the skull, exposing the dura mater and purportedly relieving a number of mental health issues) and makes the decision to hammer a series of six-inch nails into his cranium. Though his pain is indeed momentarily relieved, the subsequent clarity experienced by the hitman soon gives way to a horror far more intense than his previous flashbacks. Now, as his addiction to the nails continues to grow and his search for inner peace becomes ever more elusive, it's going to take something a bit more substantial to truly ease the pressure in this killer's head.