Midnight Clear (8:32)
Dread Central; Dust; EW; IMDb; Joe Russo; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2017 short film was presented by Alter in 2018 and 2023.

A man forces his wife and children to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. (In my family this wouldn't be weird, as we celebrate both days. But I guess it's unusual for the family in this film.) The wife is clearly very distraught and fearful, while the husband seems... well, the official synopsis of the film calls him "unstable", and I guess that's as good a word as any for how he seems. But there's a twist ending you definitely won't see coming, and it is absolutely Shyamalanesque in its ability to cast an entirely new light on everything leading up to it. The twist really makes the film great, and more tragic than you could have imagined.