Honourable Mention: Night Terrors

Receiving an honourable Mention because it is free to view online, Night Terrors is a short film by Florida director Felix Alvarez.

It begins with a woman (Krystal Lynn Hedrick) jogging whilst a man, goth looking with sunken, black rimmed eyes – and credited as the creeper (Izzy Martinez), seems to watch her with menace. She doesn’t notice him as she jogs on by to her house but he approaches the door as the filmmakers segue day into night.

Creeper arrives

The woman is watching a horror film, an excuse for some breast and some bad looking effects. Now, I am not being overly negative when I mention the effects, they are bad but they are better in the substantive short and may have been made as deliberately bad as possible in the film within the film. Even so the effects throughout are hamstrung by budget, a fact of life I’m afraid especially in something that is effects heavy. Anyway, a knock at the door and the creeper is there.

black, black eyes

Her reaction is interesting. As he presents her with flowers she allows him in, she seems rather keen on him and this is surprising as the film lingers on a photograph of her with her boyfriend (Dustin J. Aiken). Has he cast some form of mojo upon her? We can but guess as the short doesn’t elaborate. However they are soon at her bed and things are getting hot and heavy when the creeper retreats to the bathroom.

changing

In an interesting moment we see him begin to vomit a black substance, his teeth sharpened. Then he begins to morph into a bat like vampire face with long talons. There is clearly a reflection of this in the mirror, meaning of course that vampires reflect in this world view. Whilst this is going on the boyfriend has come to the house. Just exactly what will he find upstairs?

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To find out you’ll have to watch the short. I will spoil enough to say there was no twist within the film it was straight forward and a showcase, no more or less. I am sure that the aim will be to make something longer out of this and wish Felix Alvarez the best of luck with that. In the meantime the short has a homepage and is available to watch there. At the time of this article there was no IMDb page.