Season's Greetings (3:51)
IMDb; Mike Dougherty; YouTube

This animated short is from 1996, but I first saw it in the early 2000s, on Exposure. I suppose I liked it well enough, at the time, though I don't think I found it that memorable. I mean, I never really forgot that it existed, but I never gave it much thought, except perhaps around Halloween. But it became more memorable in 2009, when a live-action feature film called Trick 'r Treat, which is somewhat based on the short, was released on DVD.

Anyway, the short is about a little boy (apparently named Sam, though you wouldn't know that from short itself). He's wearing a sort of creepy, makeshift Halloween costume, and he goes out trick-or-treating late at night, but without any luck. (The streets are deserted, and everyone seems to have gone to bed for the night.) Eventually, he wanders down an alley, and he's attacked by some creepy guy. The film has no dialogue, but the visuals and the sounds (BGM and effects) are both very nicely spooky. There's also a very creepy twist ending. So... basically I liked the film, but I feel like I should really like it more than I do. It's just that it's so short, and... actually, kind of tantalizing. I have mixed feelings about the film, because part of me thinks it works perfectly just as it is, but part of me wants to learn more about Sam. It's the kind of film that I think sits right on the cusp of "less is more" and "more would be better." So I guess it's lucky that we eventually got more, in the form of "Trick 'r Treat."