As cosy season temporarily steps to one side to make way for Hallowe'en, you'll likely consider watching a horror film or two. Well, if you're compiling a spooky viewing playlist, I'd like to encourage you to watch a few short films as well. In spite of the reduced run length, these films aren't short on shocks, and by watching them you'll be supporting independent filmmakers in the process.
Below is a list of some great, creepy films I've seen over the years, as well as a couple of shout-outs for my peers who are about to release new horror shorts in the coming weeks...
1) Silly Symphonies - The Skeleton Dance (Disney)
I'm going to start with a creepy classic, because it's one that me and my partner Edward Harvey watch on Hallowe'en pretty much every year (alongside early Treehouse of Horror episodes from The Simpsons). It's not the scariest film on this list, but it's perfect for classic Hallowe'en vibes.
Word of warning, The Skeleton Dance is one of the only child-friendly entries on this list...
2) Bunny (Dir. Adam Awni)
Beeston Film Festival, a local festival that grew to become a BIFA-qualifier, has always selected quality films - but the horror nights are particularly legendary! Adam Awni's Bunny was a short that I watched at the first ever Beeston Film Festival, ten years ago this year, but its a film that's haunted my mind ever since.
3) Dolls (Dir. Keith Allott)
One of the first short films I saw from local filmmaker Keith Allott (who produced Hidden, which I wrote for director Jess O'Brien), but this one is particularly brilliant if you like jump scares! There's often something very creepy about children's toys, and Keith leans into that perfectly here.
4) Family Portrait (Dir. Kelly Holmes)
Kelly Holmes is our local queen of gothic filmmaking, and Family Portrait - a spooky period drama - is a great example of her work (the video above is just a clip, but it's worth watching the full film if you can find it). However, I'd like to take this opportunity to say that Kelly's next film The Sin-Eater, another spooky period movie, is playing at Mayhem Film Festival on the 20th of this month (that's THIS SUNDAY)! Tickets are available here, and I definitely recommend you come along. (My tiny claim to fame is that I helped build a small but important prop for this film!)
5) Best Friends Forever (Dir. Liam Banks)
The team at Superfreak Media always release brilliant self-funded horror films, so it was hard for me to pick just one to share here. I went for Best Friends Forever because it features some great special effects (and two actors I'm very fond of), but Do You See It Too is very scary, and Mr Creak is classic Superfreak. However, again, I want to do a quick shout-out and say that they have a new film coming out especially for Hallowe'en: Run for Your Life will be released at 2pm UK time on the 31st October, so make sure to subscribe to their channel so that you don't miss it.
6) Der Letzte Tropfen (dir. Sascha Zimmermann)
We've come to the first comedy-horror on this list (it's good to have a palate cleanser!), and Der Letzte Tropfen isn't obviously Hallowe'eny until you get to the end... but it's a solid piece of filmmaking, and it was co-written by my frequent collaborator Tommy Draper. Unfortunately I can't find the full film online; hopefully you'll be able to track it down, but for now you can see the trailer above.
7) Still (Dir. Oliver Park)
I was lucky enough to work with actor Oliver Park when I produced Stop/Eject, way back in 2012 (he also had a cameo in Songbird), but little did I know that he would go on to become a brilliant filmmaker in his own right. I'm more than happy to share his short films, but I can't watch them again - they scare me far too much!!
8) Whisper (Dir. Jo Lewis)
In 2016, I attended LSFF for the first time; Night Owls was playing in their 'Girlhood' selection of shorts, but I stayed for a couple of days to explore more of their programme. I watched the 'Gothic' line-up, and discovered some new favourite short films in the process! One such film was the brilliant Whisper, an atmospheric tale of a woman trying to recover from addiction whilst being haunted by something more supernatural... as luck would have it, this film's director, Jo Lewis, is now a regular collaborator of mine!
9) The Muse (Dir. Tim Walker)
Another film I saw at LSFF in 2016 and have loved ever since. This isn't necessarily a scary film, but it's atmospheric and magical with a muted, wintery colour palette, courtesy of world-class photographer-turned-director Tim Walker. It also stars the inimitable Ben Whishaw, an actor who's at the top of my list of people I want to work with!
10) Eat (Dir. Carl Shanahan)
One more from the 2016 'Gothic' screening at LSFF: Carl Shanahan's Eat has been described as a 'quasi-Victorian' chiller, as slick as it is stomach-churning, and definitely worth a share. (FYI, other short films I'd recommend from that ace 2016 line-up are Jack Taylor-Cox's Sweetheart and Aurora Fearnley's Murmur, which are both really cool, but they're not scary enough for this specific list.)
11) Mamá (Dir. Andy Muschietti )
This short-but impactful film was so impressive that it caught the eye of none other than Guillermo del Toro (the embedded video above includes an intro from him), and led to the filmmakers being able to get the feature-length version of Mama off the ground in 2013.
12) Vincent (Dir. Tim Burton)
As with many filmmakers, before breaking through into the feature-filmmaking world, Tim Burton cut his teeth and developed his style by making short films - and none was a truer representation of his voice than Vincent, a loving tribute to the work of Vincent Price told from the perspective of an outcast child protagonist.
13) Drained (Dir. Nick Peterson)
One of the first shorts which really grabbed my attention, this unique and striking film was recommended to me by my collaborator Chris Newman when we were in pre-production on my film Ashes, and it really inspired us both. Drained is more of a commentary on toxic relationships than a horror film, but that doesn't make it any less unnerving.
14) The Leerie (Dir. Joseph Daly)
A folkloric horror tale with lovely black and white cinematography, The Leerie was funded by BFI NETWORK Film Hub Midlands around the same time as my film A Different Place, so I've been lucky enough to share a screen with it at a couple of festivals. The writers have recently received early development funding for a feature-length version of The Leerie, so expect to see more from this talented team in the near future.
15) Plaggy Bag (Dir. Alex Withers)
Another BFI NETWORK Film Hub Midlands-funded short film, Plaggy Bag is a comedy horror akin to Der Letzte Tropfen, and I recommend it for its brilliantly barmy practical effects as well as the fact that it's genuinely very funny. The film is still enjoying its festival run, so keep an eye our for it in cinemas. Alex Withers' previous short film Dead Quiet, which is more of a straight horror film, is available to watch on YouTube and Vimeo.
16) Peter the Penguin (Dir. Andrew Rutter)
Peter the Penguin, directed by Andrew Rutter, is somehow as hilarious as it is gory, mixing 1990s children's TV nostalgia with a genuinely sinister atmosphere underlying the humour. I first saw the film when Lepidopterist screened alongside it at Paracinema Film Festival in 2021 - our first physical screening after the pandemic temporarily forced all cinemas to close.
17) SHÉ (Snake) (Dir. Renee Zhan)
And now I'm going back to LSFF for the next two entries on this list, as the 2024 line-up of Gothic shorts was just as good as the one I watched in 2016! The first film, Renee Zhan's SHÉ, tells the story of high school rivalry and competitiveness to the point of obsession, with a brilliant use of Beetlejuice-esque stop-motion. The film is still in festivals now, so catch it on the big screen if you can; I've attached the trailer above.
18) The Third Ear (Dir. Nathan Ginter)
On the surface, The Third Ear is a film about a live-drawing model who discovers an extra appendage; but it goes a little deeper than that, as the story feels like a comment on man's fascination with the perfect form (there's lots of lingering shots of statues). The film also has a sense of humour, and there were plenty of laughs from the LSFF audience along with audible cringes at the body horror elements.
Two more films I'd recommend from this year's LSFF Gothic line-up are Calf by Jamie O'Rourke (a truly powerful film) and Meantime by Guillaume Scaillet, which are both worth a watch but hover in the boundaries between horror and psychological drama.
19) Lab Rats (Dir. David Wayman)
Lab Rats was one of many shorts made by the local filmmaking community Team Chameleon, and although it was hard to choose just one of their films to share with you (6 Shooter is also worth a watch), I settled for Lab Rats because it's got a brilliant use of gory practical effects (kudos to FX wizard Jayne Hyman) and it's often very funny too! I helped out on the set of this film, as Costume Assistant, and producer Lauren Parker was also one of the two fab producers behind my short film Night Owls.
20) Amelia's Letter (Dir Neil Oseman)
Another beautifully atmospheric piece with ghostly elements, Stella Vision Films & Pondweed Productions' Amelia's Letter was even filmed on an estate that once belonged to Lord Byron, so you can't get more gothic than that. The film was produced by the much-missed Sophia Ramcharan and written by Steve Deery - and if you want to see even more from this film, a re-cut version called Amelia was released last year. My connection to this project is that I designed (and partly made) the costumes, Sophia was also the second fantastic producer on Night Owls, and of course I've worked with Neil many times.
And finally, one honourable mention - I really wanted to recommend T*tsferatu, a gloriously LGBT-themed spin on the Nosferatu story which was a fun highlight at this year's Beeston Film Festival (where A Different Place screened). The film comes from the USA and is only 5 minutes long. However, there doesn't seem to be any information about it online; I can't even find out who the director was! So perhaps the film will have to be remembered as a sort of rumour or an anomaly, which seems appropriate somehow!
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Have I missed any spooky shorts that you'd recommend for Hallowe'en viewing? Let me know in the comments below! I hope you all have a ghoulishly good October.
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