10 Horror Shorts to Watch This Halloween

Hold onto your dookie ’cause it’s time to get spooky! I like to spend every Halloween looking up the best horror short films that came out during the year, and 2025 was incredible. Whether you like your horror silly, sinister, sentimental, or scary, we have something for you.

For He Can Creep (Love, Death, and Robots Season 4)

Any year we get a new season of Love, Death, and Robots is a good year. Though the series has always leaned more science fiction, a few horror stories creep in. The best of Season 4 is For He Can Creep. based on the short story by Siobhan Carroll. A cat named Jeoffrey who has befriended the poet Christopher Smart in an asylum pledges to defend the poet from Satan, who wants to us Smart to bring on the apocalypse. It’s a darkly humorous tale that will please any cat-lover, as well as being charmingly animated in a way that makes it look like an old woodcut come to life.

Only Space and Time

Cosmic horror is all the rage right now, but few do it better than writer and director Chris Cameron in this science fiction horror short. A woman (Mari Takahashi) is brought in by the federal government to explain why she appears on a mysterious videotape that oozes black liquid. The feds get more than they bargained for once they start to play it. Only Space and Time is simple and stark, but hits hard when the weird starts happening.

The Door

The Door takes a standard scare and makes it heart-breaking. The grieving mother of a deceased child (Tanaya Beatty) thinks she is losing her mind when a random door appears in her now-empty home. Through the keyhole she thinks she sees monsters, but what’s on the other side is actually far more terrifying than mere nightmare creatures. Written and directed by Alexander Seltzer, the short is a devastating experience that left me completely raw for days.

The Lookout

I freely admit that half of my admiration for The Lookout is because I recently replayed Firewatch. There is just something about a fire lookout setting that makes horror a little sharper. Still, this nighttime adventure in the woods written and directed by Katherine Oostman has a killer set-up and a devilish payoff.

Bread Winners

Are you sick of the gun lobby filling up the country with weapons that angry young men use to impose terror on the world? Then Bread Winners is the short for you. At a call center for a gun manufacturer, a customer service representative is forced to confront the evils of his industry in a sick psychological game. CryptTV should be on every horror fan’s subscribe list because they put out hits like these.

Bugaboo

As long as we’re talking about horror shorts with a social justice twist, check out Dark Fun’s Bugaboo. A woman (Helen Donahue) is harassed by a man who sexually assaulted her until she turns to a cursed doll for revenge. The scares and the monster are a little janky, but the overall package is too satisfying to skip.

Moving Parts

I swore off stop-motion horror after being traumatized by Mad God, but an anti-capitalist musical dragged me right back in. Made by Hugo Docking with music by Henry Blackaller, this is a gory, goopy bloodfeast. A salesman is talked into donating some flesh for the high end art market, and the process puts any recent Mortal Kombat fatality to shame.

Sleep Talker

For my money, Alter is the best YouTube channel for short horror throughout the year. Frankly, this whole list could just be their output, but let’s focus on the two best of 2025. A woman (Jessica Saras) returns home to find her husband (John van Putten) talking strangely in his sleep. After she spies blood on the pillow, she has to face one of the most disturbing aliens I have ever seen. This will make you squirm. And lock your windows. And maybe never sleep again.

Selfie

The best short from Alter this year is Selfie, by John Poliquin. The premise may be tired (social media is dehumanizing us), but the special effects are out of this world. When a young woman (Peyton Kennedy) feels her photo sharing app is destroying her self image and tried to delete it, her filtered avatar stalks her relentlessly. Trust me, the preview image does not do the horror of this thing in motion justice, nor the stomach-turning extent of its wrath.

Couch

My favorite horror short of the year is Couch. The acting is stilted, the story is ridiculous, but the total package is far more than the sum of its parts. A young woman (Emily Marcheschi) is trapped in an abusive relationship with her artist girlfriend (Connar Brown Sprenger). It’s so bad that she forms a trauma bond with the guy who delivers her girlfriend’s post-argument apology flowers.

Salvation comes in the form of an arm that extends out of the couch, offering comfort, understanding and, eventually, a violent form of escape. It’s wonderfully weird the way Stephen King’s “The Finger” is, mixing absurdity, pathos, and horror for something truly memorable. writer/director Ross Chavez (from right here in Texas!) is definitely a talent to watch if he can pull something magical off as his first effort.

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