Making 2 Short Horror Films in 1 Day

So, I’ve done it again. Set myself a ridiculous task to push my creativity to the limit.

Getting Inspiration

Why would anyone attempt such a ludicrous task? The beginning of this journey started with me looking for short horror films in September to watch in October. There were plenty of them online, but not many that caught me.

The common trend was the beginning of a great concept but fell through in execution either by adding too much to the concept or not having sufficient technical ability.

One prime example of this was a short film about a couple who rent a vacation home, and then find a strange but small hole in the ground. One of them gets fascinated with the hole and keeps staring in it, trying to see the bottom. That night, the other partner wakes up to find their significant other missing from bed, they look outside to find them standing behind a wall, like they were possessed. When the partner goes to walk towards them, their leg gets stuck down the hole, like a hand had grabbed their leg and wouldn’t let go. Then their significant other comes over with a knife and stabs them. Then the short film ends.

To me, this had way too many ideas thrown into the mix without any clear overlap between events. But, the initial concept of a hole that you can’t see the bottom of scares me and I love it as a short horror idea.

The Ideas

From my exploration of short horror films on the internet, I went about pooling together ideas for concepts, then trimming them down to their barest-bone fears and focusing on that without deteriorating the writing and adding too much around the initial concept. This was how ‘Family Trees’ was written. I took the concept of not knowing what’s inside a hole and combined it with a curiosity I had as a child, wondering whether I could see a face in a tree.

The second film, ‘He’s Still There’ was written by first-time writer, Hannah Shaw. They managed to capture a pure but simple fear in such a way that was excellent on paper but would be a challenge for me to do correctly on screen. The premise of ‘He’s Still There’ seemed mildly scary for me, a man found at the back door to your home. I feel I would be fairly calm about the situation and call the police after attempting to speak with the man. However, for a young woman, the fear is quite different as put so elegantly through Hannah’s writing. For this reason, I wanted Hannah on set as a co-director and casting director so that the film captured the fear qualities from the eyes of someone in her shoes. Therefore, combining her expert perspective with my technical directing skills.

Production

We filmed both films in one day, working around everyone’s busy schedules. I am absolutely blown away by the performances of all cast members, Nicola Wright, Mairi-Clare MacLean and Jack Roper.

Now just having finished the post-production of both films one week later, it’s been a mammoth amount of work in post and Visual FX, but feels good to have it done and looking so nice! You can now watch both films below!

I’d recommend following this blog, our Patreon or my Instagram @sebcoxfilms for updates on our latest projects!

Thanks again to the incredible supporters on Patreon, those who in the Executive Producer tier get their name as Executive Producer in the credits to the next project we work on during their membership. You can explore our Patreon here