scariest horror short « HORROR BOOM

Just squeaking by to make Scariest Horror Short for the month of May 2014, “Lights Out” is short, but not too sweet. (Thanks to Halloween Girl’s kick-ass blog post that listed five scariest horror shorts and caused us to discover it–she pretty much nailed it!) The short is less than three minutes and has no gore… then again, neither does the Mama short film, which still packs a wallop every time I re-watch.

OK, so yeah, we dare you to wait until after sunset, turn off all the lights in the house crank up the volume and/or wear headphones, and watch this terrifying short (I needed a good scare –the controlled kind from horror movies, not from real life– scary enough week around here already*, and did all but watch it full screen). Guess what? I sure as hell got THAT scare. Halloween Girl said she watched it on an iPhone and held it as far away from her face as she could, and still thought it was scary as hell.

Now that you’ve seen it, we DOUBLE-dare you to sleep with the lights off! This gem won a contest:

Winner of ‘Best Short’ at FANT Bilbao 2014: http://fantbilbao.net/Fant2014/
Winner of ‘Best Director’ in the ‘Who’s There Film Challenge’ http://www.bchorrorchallenge.com

We watched quite a few from the challenge that are posted on YouTube, and they had some heavy competition. Both the wins are well-deserved.

*One of several scary things this week we did NOT ask for: having one of the guys who are putting a new roof on our house accidentally put his foot through right outside your front door. One of us had to stay home in case the power went out or went wrong, and it sounded like every MUTO in Godzilla was jumping up and down on the roof trying to destroy it. ALL DAY. Pictures fell off the walls, things rolled off the kitchen counter, we knew it’d be loud but didn’t sign up for a goddamned earthquake.

Is it possible to scare the living shit out of a viewer when the short is less than two minutes long, and the setting is bathed in warm, cheerful sunlight (accompanied by a sweet lullaby, no less)? Yes, it is. However, I’m trying to think of another horror short that accomplishes this and coming up empty. For that alone, this terrifying, rare gem deserves some sort of award.

This one was directed by Marichelle Daywalt. Short …but far from sweet. Listen to the lullaby lyrics right before it cuts out (someone had to point it out to me, I was too busy taking deep breaths to avoid a panic attack)!