The Short Horror Magic of Happenstance Horror Fest

Curate-Your-Own Short-Horror Festival (All Streaming)

What I love most about festivals like Happenstance is that the magic doesn’t have to end when the lights come up and the Q&As wrap. The thrill of discovery can absolutely continue at home. So I curated this “create-your-own horror shorts festival” that lets you experience the magic of curated short-form content from the comfort of home.

Some selections are curated from the festival filmmakers themselves. Others are hand-picked “complimentary” films — shorts that echo the themes, tones, obsessions, and genre flavors that make the fest’s in-person programming shine.

Together, this feels like a living extension of Happenstance: an evolving, deeply varied mix of eerie micro-stories, arthouse nightmares, stop-motion oddities, campy creature gags, feminist bite-backs, queer horror gems, and emotionally devastating aesthetic stunners — all streaming right now, all ready to be devoured at home.

• The Carvening — sweet, clever slasher love letter (animated)*
• Cold Terror — killer beer gag, sharp horror-comedy microshort (animated)*
• The Outsider— melancholic Lovecraft adaptation (puppet version)
• Pox — painterly plague fable with mythic dread**
• Moving Parts — macabre stop-motion musical about temptation and commerce
• Spook Train: Curtains — gleefully grotesque, absurdist claymation
• Tearin’ It Down — gorgeous stop-motion parable of the walls we build out of fear
• Rabbit — vintage storybook innocence curdled into horror
• The Wolves are All Gone — paper-cut dark animated fairytale about the horror of othering
• Toe — “Scary Stories” folk-terror done right
• Posted No Hunted — found-footage-style micro scare
• 15-Second Horror Challenge Compilations — bite-sized terror from diverse filmmakers
• Don’t Listen to Them — eerie Halloween special about whispers in a cornfield best left ignored
• Your One and Only — chilling revenge flick
• The Mannequin— French fright about obsession; nightmare fuel
• Doorway — minimalist bump-in-the-night jolt**
• The Bait Man — grotesque bait-shop nightmare*
• The Smiling Man — date-night dread with a sting**
• Don’t Turn Around  — slow-burning chiller full of psychological dread
• La Cruz (The Cross) — potent Spanish horror steeped in atmosphere and emotional drama
• Margie — Creepy, gorgeously executed supernatural stunner
• Les Battues (The Fading) — haunting tale of grief pushed to the brink
• Her Curse — funny, female-driven tale of breakup revenge with a killer stinger
• Pop Monsters — vicious girls-behaving-badly satire
• Night of the Slasher — witty and clever one-take slasher subversion
• ContraPoints: Incels — incisive cultural context (essay video)
• Rabbit Season — dark fairytale of domestic trauma and reclamation*
• CHOMP — demented workplace horror creature-feature workplace with bite
• The Moths Will Eat Them Up — the terror of gendered violence leads to stunning catharsis
• The Things We Do When We’re Alone — closeted horror in the shadows or religious oppression
• My Monster — cuddly holiday cosmic beast romance
• The Amber Thief — surreal stop-motion fantasy**
• RAT! — toxic fandom meets home-invasion camp
• Seen Too Much — noir-grit thriller explores the spiral of bad choices
• The Bathtub — lo-fi dreamscape odyssey featuring Bob Bert of Sonic Youth**
• The Kiss — post-pandemic intimacy body-horror*
• La Noria — Gripping, Pixar-level animated holiday horror about grief
• Midnight Movie Mausoleum  — cursed VHS Samhain treat
• Knock Knock— a sharp short that weaponizes sound to generate pure dread
• Mosquito Lady — mythic feminist monster fable
• I Hate Waking Up — ticking-clock existential creeper*
• The Photographer — a tense and surprising morality tale that challenges perspective
• The Fisherman’s Wife  — haunting eco-collapse mer-horror
• Video Barn — stylish homage to 80s, small-town horror
• The Good Word — nefarious preacher meets his match
• Make Me a Sandwich — domestic horror with a savage and satisfying turn
• Catch a Butcher — unnerving historical horror with a punch
• Isolated — next-level CGI survival thriller; pulse-pounding
• Dead Air — riotous B-movie creature feature with girl-powered, punk rock flair
• The Orion Project — insightful allegory meets cosmic dread*
• He Waits — loving, funny send-up of The Shape
• Carbon Ghost — atmospheric tale of the ghosts that memory carves into us*
• Watched — livestreamed abduction nightmare
• Ursid — folk ritual with a wicked swerve*
• STDeep — Lovecraftian nightmare on a battleship*