12 Great Horror Movie Shorts You Need To See

4. Monster

Monster, by director Jennifer Kent, is a precursor to her feature The Babadook. In it, we see a lot of the seeds that would ultimately take root and blossom in the feature film. That’s not to say Monster isn’t a worthwhile film in its own right though as it does a lot its short run time.

The film has a claustrophobic kind of horror. It’s entirely black and white, not merely to nod to the German expressionist films that influence both this and The Babadook, but also to help emphasize the unpleasant nature of the setting of the film – a house where a mother and son encounter a monster. The black and white emphasize the grime of surfaces that are likely never to be completely cleaned by this already overworked mother and highlights the dark confining atmosphere of the house.

If anything, the monster serves to highlight the horror of being confined to such a location and the struggle of trying to navigate the domestic space, maintaining order among who (and what) lives there.

Jennifer Kent is an amazing director and if you’ve seen her features The Babadook and The Nightingale, then you’ll know it’s worth seeking out this earlier work.