Every day through October, the Department of Tangents brings you the Daily Horror Film Fest – one short horror film for every day of the month. It might be terrifying, it might be funny. It could be an homage classic monsters or something entirely new. Check back every morning for a new scare as we celebrate horror shorts!

Today’s short, “Full Moon,” written by Aaron Hamilton and Arthur Mah and directed by Mah and Harvey Li, is Halloween magic. Bullies facing justice for stealing candy (kid had the good stuff, too – Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups galore), costume shaming, a hopeful teen’s secret party going wrong, a man with a mysterious past and a guilty conscience, Spin Spider, an unplanned reaction – this is all the type of stuff kids think is going on any given Halloween night. Danger and possibility. Even the title sequence is fun.

This one definitely leans more toward humor than horror, but there is a mystery to work out. If you freeze on the stories the old man with the guilty conscience has hanging on his wall, they don’t seem to add up to a clear conclusion. If you go as far as to read the last story the directors focus on, some of the details even contradict some of the things he says as he berates himself. Why does he think he’s a murderer? How are the clippings connected, if at all? Why do the kids punk him every year?

Maybe you aren’t meant to pause the frame and read, maybe we’re just meant to breeze by it and take it for face value. But what self-respecting kid ignores a mystery on Halloween night?