Our 8 Favorite Short Films From Panic Fest 2025
Horror short films are a crucial part of the genre festival experience, whether it be a well-curated shorts block or a chilling precursor to a feature film. But oftentimes, they can be overlooked in the name of prioritizing feature films. So, as part of Panic Fest 2025, Dread Central’s Mary Beth McAndrews and Chad Collins decided to check out its massive roster of shorts, featuring films that run the gamut of subgenres, all boasting impressive creative visions from the rising stars in the horror world. It wasn’t easy, but we crafted a short list of our favorite short films that played at this year’s Panic Fest!
Cosmic Crash (dir. James Smith)
At just one minute long, writer/director/stop-motion animator James Smith packs in a lot of story and emotions into his quick tale about an alien lifeform who crashes near a secret lab. It’s silly, gory, and even a little sad. Smith’s style is childish, but that’s meant as a positive thing, as it adds to the overall comedy of the micro-short. It’s just a great example of what horror can look like in any media and any length. —Mary Beth McAndrews
Devil’s Prism (dir. Kika Magalhães)
Kika Magalhães (star of The Eyes of My Mother) is trying her hand at directing in her new found footage horror short Devil’s Prism. With her first foray into filmmaking, Magalhães establishes herself as a force to be reckoned with, unafraid to play with genre expectations and filming techniques to craft a nasty story about three friends and a heist gone wrong. Someone give Magalhães the resources to make a found footage splatter film, please.—Mary Beth McAndrews
The Last Thing She Saw (dir. Anthony Cousins & Rebecca Daugherty)
From the minds behind the found footage hit Frogman comes something quite a bit nastier than their cryptid feature. Here, a young woman survives a brutal home invasion, but not unscathed… With her eye hanging by an optic nerve, she uses her injury to her advantage to look around corners. It’s disgusting but darkly hilarious, a fascinating use of in-world camera and first-person perspective. In his previous shorts, Cousins has illustrated his love and dedication to the world of practical effects, and that’s on full display in The Last Thing She Saw. Cousins and Daugherty make quite the filmmaking duo, and I can’t wait to see what new nightmares they craft next. —Mary Beth McAndrews
Masks (dir. Andre LeBlanc)
In Andre LeBlanc’s latest short film, a man uses a series of masks to try and help his wife heal after a horrible accident that killed their son. While each mask does seem to help her, it comes at a very real cost. LeBlanc uses practical effects to perfection here to craft a tense experience that evolves into a parent’s worst nightmare. Plus, Cindy Dolenc delivers a stellar performance as the primarily non-verbal mother character, showing a strong command of her facial expressions that carries the film’s tension until the very end. —Mary Beth McAndrews
Mimic (dir. Thomas Edward Hindy)
Thomas Edward Hindy’s Mimic was a natural favorite of mine because there are few things I love more than body-double horror movies. Something about an entity or force beyond our understanding replicating our form is terrifying in some deeply human, existential way. It’s why the likes of Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers have endured for decades, widely considered one of the scariest movies ever made. When something can replicate who we are, some core part of our humanity is lost. The horror genre revisits the well pretty regularly in everything from slashers (consider Scream 3’s voice changer) to ghost stories (The Others), and Mimic is body-double horror on steroids. It’s brief, violent, and frightening. —Chad Collins
Mr. Static (dir. Mike Williamson)
Mike Williamson’s Mr. Static is scary. I largely think short films should be evaluated independently of whatever comes next, though like last year’s Panic Fest hit The Crossing Over Express, shorts are often calling cards, bite-sized reels that ideally springboard into feature-length opportunities. If anything from this year’s Panic Fest has the juice, it’s Mr. Static. No differently than Lights Out or Night Swim, Mr. Static is scary and conceptual, perfect for a feature adaptation.
Christina Elizabeth Smith is entranced by an old television in her home. Broadcast are weird murders committed at the hands of the titular Mr. Static. It’s unsettling and low-fi, analog terror that grabs hold and doesn’t let go. And it reaches a boiling point when the scene reflected on her television is her actual house. It’s a sensational bit of stalk-and-slash terror, and the televised conceit allows for remarkably distinct filming and tension building. If Mr. Static gets a larger broadcast in the future, consider me among its audience—I can’t wait to tune into the static again. —Chad Collins
RAT! (dir. Neal Suresh Mulani)
A twink… alone… at night! That’s the tagline for Neal Suresh Mulani’s RAT!, a horror short whose festival rounds recently arrived at this year’s Panic Fest. The conceit is endearingly relevant. Award-winning music journalist Navin Miller (Neal Suresh Mulani)—who definitely isn’t alone in his remote house—accuses popstar Wally Max of queerbaiting. I’ll steer clear of the broader, real-life discourse, though even I’ll concede this a delicate discussion to be had regarding pop musicians and ambivalent gestures toward queerness (that generate solid market shares and airtime) at the expense of conspicuously queer artists who recurrently struggle to get their foot in the door.
With controversy and a fat ass, Miller is first thrilled his accusations go mega-viral until Stan Twitter (perhaps the scariest horror monster ever) seeks revenge. With cameos from Caitlin Reilly (always a delight) and Charles Gould, RAT! is a conspicuous labor of love. It’s well-shot, funny, and when the home invasion finale includes, pretty intense. RAT! is exceptional queer horror, through and through. —Chad Collins
Stomach It (dir. Peter Klausner)
Peter Klausner’s short film about a crime scene clean-up guy with a weak stomach answered a lot of my questions about what it takes to work such a job. Steeped in sickly shades of yellows, blues, and greens, the short film is a grimy look at a difficult job made all the more difficult by anxiety and a reflexive queasiness at the sight of gore. Klausner smartly grounds his short in reality before veering into creepier horror territory, making the film all the more unpredictable and entertaining. It’s a fascinating look at an underexplored career when it comes to genre filmmaking. —Mary Beth McAndrews
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