Every day in October, the Department of Tangents Blog & Podcast presents a different short horror film. There are a lot of great ones out there, and these are some of my favorites, found at short film festivals or from searching the Web. Today is a double feature, Closet Space and Attic Panic.

There is an old bit of common wisdom that says home is where most accidents happen. For husband and wife team David F. Sanders (director of Annabelle: Creation and Lights Out) and Lotta Losten, home is where the horror happens. Posting under the name “ponysmasher” on YouTube, they’ve made a series of short films in their own residence about creepy things that happen when you’re supposed to be most comfortable. Sometimes your phone shows you things you don’t want to see. Or that chest in the spare room becomes a portal to hell. Sanders and Losten made one of these shorts, Lights Out, into a feature film.

The first film, Closet Space, is my favorite of the bunch. The filmmakers say it’s more “Twilight Zone than horror,” but The Twilight Zone set a standard for smart horror, the kind of stuff that stuck with you. There is a bit of a puzzle to solve with Closet Space. As with some of the best horror concepts, why these things are happening is left to your imagination. Attic Panic is another well-conceived short. Storage spaces hold a lot of possibilities. No one wants to spend much time in there, and who knows what’s lurking around all those musty boxes no one’s opened in years.

CLOSET SPACE

ATTIC PANIC