Scariest Short (VERY Short) Horror Film of The Week- “One Last Dive,” From Jason Eisener

This may be the shortest Horror Short of the Week ever at a little over one minute. But boy, does it pack a wallop.

When The Conjuring was released in the summer of 2013, three indie film-makers were asked to do short horror films that would just have one common theme: They all needed to take place at 3:07. If you saw The Conjuring, you know why 3:07 is a very creepy time of the night. I even dared people to come home after seeing Conjuring and watch these three short shorts either at 3:07, or to time it so the last one ended right before 3:07. Not too surprisingly, there were no takers (possibly because I made the stipulation that all the lights had to be off in the house at the time).

They were all partially presented by VICE. The first short was an incoherent jumble–all I could tell was that a séance was involved (I think) and then the people recording it freaked out at 3:07– the second (by Ti West) was creepy and had a great filming style, but had no narrative. So I recall by about that point I was pretty sure they were all going to be pretty mediocre. I was very wrong about that. Watch Jason Eisener’s (Hobo With a Shotgun, V/H/S 2) “One Last Dive” below. Crank up the volume!

I almost hit the goddamned ceiling! And I didn’t even watch it on a large window OR have the music at a high volume. While we’re on the subject, I should mention that I am aware you don’t get a ‘Scariest Short Horror Film of The Week’, once a week anymore. The truth is, I have a few tucked up my sleeve but am also running out of good ones that are scary as hell. Thanks for being patient, and if you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments section! We already put up the one with the creepy Smiling Man when it was suggested to us in a poll. To find new ones, I usually have to sit through nine crummy ones to get to the 10% that are actively frightening.

“One Last Dive” still scares me after ten or so viewings.

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

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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.

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*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.