We asked you to create 30-second horror films. Our judge, the filmmaker Wes Craven, gave you the theme “young genius.” We got more than 300 movies — from Canada, Italy, England, and all over the United States. Some are funny, most are scary — a few, so creepy we couldn’t watch them twice. (Watch all the submisisons here.)
“I was really impressed and entertained by all that I saw,” says Craven. “There was a great amount of imagination and sophistication in these.” He tells Kurt Andersen that they compare favorably to the entries he judged for the movie-making reality TV show Project Greenlight.
WINNER:
...Jack— by Jake Jarvi in Chicago, Illinois
“Slick in the best sense of the word,” Craven says. “Very well-lit, very well-conceived. Very, very powerful and unsettling.” Jarvi’s day job is making videos for a fashion magazine — on the side, he makes the web serial PoPS. “Jack-in-the-boxes just by their nature are meant to torture children!” he says. “They’re one of the scariest things you can put in front of a kid, so I always kind of carried that with me.”
RUNNERS UP:
A Boy and His Robot.— by Tim in Cleveland, Ohio
“Chilling, economical, and well done,” Craven says. Kurt agrees: it’s his favorite entry.
Those We Love— by Alex in Los Angeles, California
“A tight concept, good acting, even on the part of the boy, good cinematography, and an economical and clear set-up,” Craven says.
