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[Boredom Bytes] Three Horror Shorts You Shouldn’t Miss
It’s Sunday, and you know what that means! “Game of Thrones is tonight?” YES. Daenerys has her boats, her dragons, and her army. Shit’s about to go down.
It’s been a long time since I last featured a trio of horror short films, but I was in the mood to watch a few more so I figured we could do it together. After the break I have the newest film from Bloody Cuts — the talented folks behind that amazing Suckablood film — as well as a few older shorts that will definitely get under your skin.
First up is Don’t Move. It’s the latest film in the Bloody Cuts series and it’s just as unique and unsettling as the last. The moral of the story seems to revolve around staying as far as humanly possible from Ouija boards, lest you accidentally summon the Helen Keller of demons that has no problem tearing you apart if you so much as try and stealthily scratch your junk. In related news, the last time I used a Ouija board the malicious piece of cardboard told me I was going to die by an axe. True story.
“Don’t Move” – Short Horror Film – BloodyCuts.co.uk from BloodyCuts.co.uk on Vimeo.
Next up: Red Balloon. This film has been on the Internet for some time, but I watched it for the first time yesterday and fell in love with it. It’s not particularly original — it follows the all too familiar babysitter + recently freed lunatic + creepy mute child = scary formula — but it’s well acted, beautifully shot, and so long as it’s well-made, who cares if it isn’t the most original film out there?
RED BALLOON from Alexis Wajsbrot on Vimeo.
Lastly, we have Chatter, a horror short about a girl who gets jealous way too easily. I mean, come on, her eBoyfriend had his shoulder squeezed on cam and she freaks the fuck out. I’m not saying there isn’t more to the squeeze, but immediately getting all pissy and cutting off contact with the guy probably isn’t the best way to handle the situation. Relationships, am I right?
Oh, and scary stuff happens, too.
Chatter from Espen Gjelsten on Vimeo.
Have a question? Feel free to ever-so-gently toss Adam an email, or follow him on Twitter and Bloody Disgusting.
Let’s start with the good news. Lockbox looks far better than its misleading marketing materials suggest, a supernatural horror movie so darkly lit and color graded that you’ll have to squint your way through jump scares. It’s also anchored by reliable genre performers. That’s also about where the good news ends with this rote adaptation of Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop.”
The empathetic Carla Gugino gives her all as Ellen, a saint of a woman with boundless patience who takes on life’s hard luck with a kind smile. After giving up her career as a fashion designer to become caretaker for a dying mother, she’s then forced to reinvent herself once more when her caretaker role ends. That catches us up to the events of Lockbox, where Ellen is asked to take in a cousin she hasn’t seen in quite some time who’s dealing with severe PTSD.
Just as Ellen finally establishes a real connection with Winthrop (Lou Taylor Pucci), it’s interrupted by the arrival of peculiar neighbor Vahna (Katharine Isabelle), who spells clear trouble. When Vahna shows up dead, it sets in motion a supernatural battle of possession.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
Director Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism, Prey for the Devil) and screenwriter Justin Yoffe approach Lockbox in the broadest of brushstrokes, dooming it from the start with clunky storytelling and woefully underdeveloped themes of heady topics like PTSD. Winthrop is a character that comes loaded with emotional baggage and trauma that’s piled on throughout his tragic life, but much like its title, his interiority and history are treated like a tightly guarded secret meant to prolong the supernatural mystery.
The problem here, though, is that Lockbox is too sparse to sustain mystery at all, and it instead robs Winthrop of characterization. It winds up trapping the talented Pucci without anywhere to go, toggling between wounded animal and mentally disoriented.
From there, Lockbox bounds through plot developments without any sense of stakes or purpose, peppered by a smattering of haphazard paint-by-numbers jump scares. The only unwavering constant is Ellen’s resolute faith, and Stamm seems to leave it entirely to Gugino to guide confused audiences through this inconsequential story right up until its supernatural climax.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
To give more credit, Lockbox at least injects an unconventional exorcism here; just don’t expect much in the way of explanation. When the film finally reveals the meaning behind its title, it dangles a fascinating carrot it has zero interest in delivering. More than a severe lack of fleshing out its characters beyond plot drivers or devices, this faith-based flick also seems terrified to offer any worldbuilding whatsoever.
Yoffe’s script stretches the short story beyond its means instead of fleshing it out, and Stamm fills out the gaps with cheap CGI scares and overwrought performances; Isabelle’s Vahna is beyond cartoonish in her villainy. It’s also pretty nonsensical, treating only Ellen’s faith with the utmost sincerity and largely squandering its typically reliable talent. So much so that the final imagery, pure sunkissed saccharine sentimentality, leaves you with the feeling that this horror movie might be better suited as an entry in Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Lockbox releases in select theaters on July 3, 2026.
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