More often than not, short films stay short films, and the filmmakers either never get the chance to expand upon them or simply have no interest in doing so. But every once in a while, short films grow up to become big, beautiful features, and it’s those feature films with small beginnings that we’re here to talk about today.
You’ll notice that we’ve included each of the shorts down below, so feel free to watch ’em as you read!
THE EVIL DEAD
After making a handful of low-budget short films together, friends Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell decided to go bigger in the late 1970s, and make their very first feature length horror film. Of course, they didn’t exactly have enough money to do that, so they headed out to a friend’s farmhouse and made a 30-minute short called Within the Woods, essentially to show potential investors what they were capable of. Made on a budget of less than $2,000, the short film generated the attention they hoped that it would. Just a few years later, the idea of an evil force overtaking a group of friends in a remote cabin was expanded upon in The Evil Dead – one of the most beloved horror movies of all time.
TRICK ‘R TREAT
It was in 1996, while at film school in New York, that Michael Dougherty (Krampus) made a four-minute animated short film called Season’s Greetings – a delightfully creepy and atmospheric tale about a young boy trick or treating on Halloween night. Dressed in orange footy pajamas and wearing a burlap sack on his head, the short was our very first introduction to the lovable protector of Halloween known as Sam, who came to life a decade later in Trick ‘r Treat and instantly became a fan-favorite icon of the holiday. We love you, Sam. So very much.
RARE EXPORTS
In 2003, a bizarre seven-minute film called Rare Exports Inc. made its way onto the internet, written and directed by Jalmari Helander. The short followed three men as they hunted down a naked Santa Claus, and it became such a hit online that Helander expanded upon the idea for another short a couple years later, called Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions. Seven years after the original short was made, Rare Exports became a feature film, with Helander himself turning the boldly original idea into a truly magical fantasy adventure.
SAW
It was in 2001 that Leigh Whannell wrote the screenplay for Saw, which he and James Wan shopped around in their home country of Australia. Having no luck, the two moved to Los Angeles and decided to pluck out a scene from the script and bring it to life, hopeful that a visual aid would help sell their idea. Running just under ten minutes, the original Saw short starred Whannell as a man who gets kidnapped and locked in the infamous reverse bear trap – the role that Shawnee Smith ended up playing in the film. With the interest of producers piqued by the short, Wan and Whannell were given $1 million and 18 days to turn it into a feature, which grossed over $100 million worldwide and spawned six sequels.
GRACE
In 2006, with a few shorts under his belt, Paul Solet came up with the idea for Grace, a twisted tale about a baby that needs a little bit more than formula and mother’s milk to stay alive. Realizing he didn’t have enough money to turn the idea into a feature, Solet instead adapted the opening scenes from the script into a five-minute short, taking it to the festival circuit in a bid to generate interest. Solet, who would walk around convention halls at the time carrying the dead baby prop from the short, caught the attention of Hatchet writer/director Adam Green, whose company Ariescope Pictures produced and released the feature-length expansion of Grace in 2009.
DARKNESS FALLS
The concept of the Tooth Fairy is a pretty creepy one: a creature who comes into the bedrooms of children at night and takes their teeth in exchange for money. It was in 2001 that filmmaker Joe Harris realized the potential for horror in the idea, putting a dark spin on the bedtime story with a short film appropriately titled Tooth Fairy. Though the film ran less than five minutes, the folks over at Sony Pictures were inspired enough by the concept to expand upon the idea, hiring Harris and a few other writers to pen the screenplay for Darkness Falls. Released in 2003, the feature film marked the directorial debut of Jonathan Liebesman (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), and didn’t quite garner the same positive reactions that the short did.
JU-ON
Long before getting the American remake treatment, Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on (The Grudge) began its life as two short segments in a Japanese TV anthology film called Gakko no kaidan G. Shimizu was recruited for the project based on a previous short film he had directed, tasked with helming two 3-minute segments that comprised less than 10% of the finished film. Shimizu’s contributions were titled Katasumi and 4444444444, which introduced the characters of Kayako and that creepy meowing boy, and they served as the inspiration for Ju-on: The Curse, released in 2000. Shimizu refers to the two shorts as prequels to the movies.
THE PACT
It was at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival that an 11-minute short film titled The Pact premiered – a creepy little ghost story that garnered a positive reaction from the festival crowd. Writer/director Nicholas McCarthy shot the film in only two days, based on an idea he had been tooling with for years, and he returned from the festival hopeful that he’d someday get the chance to turn the short into a feature. Exactly one year later, at Sundance 2012, McCarthy’s dreams came true and the feature length version of The Pact premiered. Now that’s a success story!
MAMA
Made in 2008 by Andres Muschietti, the short film that became 2013’s Mama was a genuinely chilling tale of two young girls who come upon a frightening apparition that they refer to as “Mama,” and it caught the attention of a filmmaker with a whole lot of pull in Hollywood: Guillermo del Toro. So impressed with the short was Del Toro that he contacted Muschietti and worked with him to turn three minutes into one hundred, coming on board to produce the expansion. As Del Toro notes in his introduction to the short, it’s one of the scariest films he’s ever seen.
THE BABADOOK
One of the most recent films to make the leap from short to feature was Jennifer Kent’s Monster, which became 2014 hit The Babadook. Running just under 10-minutes long, and made way back in 2005, Monster centers on a mother who battles her son’s fear of a monster lurking in the closet, and Kent refers to the short as “baby Babadook.” It took nearly ten years for the short to become a feature, but the wait was definitely worth it. Kent’s debut feature put her on the map in a big way, and was widely considered to be 2014’s best horror film.
If you can think of any other horror movies that were spawned from shorts, let us know!