10 Great Horror Movies That Started Out As Short Films

For one of the most frightening, heartfelt, and original horror movies of the 21st Century so far, look no further than Jennifer Kent's The Babadook. 

Following the death of her husband, Amelia Vanek (Essie Davis) struggles to look after her incredibly annoying son Samuel (Noah Wiseman). Things only get worse when the titular creature starts appearing in their house, as Amelia must deal with it and her mounting grief and parental stress. 

Ol' Babby's origins lie in a 2005 short film from Kent called Monster, which she herself refers to as "Baby Babadook". It's about 10 minutes long and is also about a mother and son and the house-dwelling monster stalking them both.

The full-length movie goes into way more emotional detail (as one might expect), but you can definitely see the barebones of The Babadook in this fragment. Kent also drew on her experiences as a production assistant to help complete the film, particularly when she worked on Lars von Trier's movie Dogville.