Soothe Your Tattered Nerves With (Throwback) Scariest Horror Short of The Week – “Playtime” (Grand Prize Winner of “Who’s There” Challenge)

Yep, this has been published before. Let’s face it, the election clock ticking down has pretty much everyone on edge (at best).  We can tell you that, through life experience, sometimes the way to get your mind off something scary in real life is to watch something fictional, like oh, a horror movie, that at least diverts the terror into a manageable area. So, we are (re)presenting a pretty goddamned scary short horror film to distract you! Enjoy, and just hit the category tag for ‘Scariest Short Horror Film of the Week’ (or month) if you want more.  Hey, things could be worse… you could be the main character in this terrifying little gem.

 

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You remember the scariest short horror film of the entire month of May, “Lights Out,” right? Uh, yeah, we remember it pretty vividly, too. We thought it won First Prize, and “Lights Out” did win Best Director. Screen shot 2014-06-04 at 11.58.37 PM

We were surprised to find there was a Grand Prize Winner of the Bloody Cuts “Who’s There?” short film challenge that was a different film. How could anything be scarier than Lights Out? We were scared to watch “Play Time”, honestly, but it WAS still light out. It’s light out right now, which is why we are brave enough to post it. However, nice summer evening out or not, this one is fucking scary. I personally would be screaming as loud as the actress in the movie if I saw it in a movie theater, and probably more than once.  If I was the actual character, I would have soiled myself (and well before the ending).

So if you want a good old-fashioned scare, turn out the lights, turn up the volume, and switch to full-screen. Then check this out:

So… not as much of a slow burn (if you can describe any three-minute short that way) as “Lights Out”, but…yeah. Doesn’t waste much time, and we loved it.

We do recommend the below “making of” short. It’s interesting… and it might help you sleep a little better.

 

Scariest Short Horror Film Of The Week – “Playtime” (Grand Prize Winner of “Who’s There” Challenge)

You remember the scariest short horror film of the entire month of May, “Lights Out,” right? Uh, yeah, we remember it pretty vividly, too. We thought it won First Prize, and “Lights Out” did win Best Director. Screen shot 2014-06-04 at 11.58.37 PM

We were surprised to find there was a Grand Prize Winner of the Bloody Cuts “Who’s There?” short film challenge that was a different film. How could anything be scarier than Lights Out? We were scared to watch “Play Time”, honestly, but it WAS still light out. It’s light out right now, which is why we are brave enough to post it. However, nice summer evening out or not, this one is fucking scary. I personally would be screaming as loud as the actress in the movie if I saw it in a movie theater, and probably more than once.  If I was the actual character, I would have soiled myself (and well before the ending).

So if you want a good old-fashioned scare, turn out the lights, turn up the volume, and switch to full-screen. Then check this out:

So… not as much of a slow burn (if you can describe any three-minute short that way) as “Lights Out”, but…yeah. Doesn’t waste much time, and we loved it.

We do recommend the below “making of” short. It’s interesting… and it might help you sleep a little better.

 

Scariest Short Horror Film of The Month – We Dare You To Watch “Lights Out” (2013) In The Dark!

Screen shot 2014-05-31 at 7.46.37 AM

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.

Screen shot 2014-05-31 at 7.46.12 AM
*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.