tek's rating: ½
(Rating for the channel collectively; some films I may like more or less than others.)

Huluween Film Fest, on Hulu / YouTube

This is an anthology of horror short films. It started in 2018, but I didn't have access to Hulu that year, and didn't realize Hulu had done a Halloween film fest that year until after I watched their 2019 film fest. It's not even mentioned on their Huluween hub page, which is where I discovered the 2019 film fest... which has its own page that collects that year's shorts, but I've been unable to find a page that collects 2018's shorts, even though they're all still available to watch on Hulu. However, Hulu's YouTube channel does have a playlist for the 2018 film fest.

2018 (YouTube)

Reviews coming sooner or later.

Urn (4:16)
Dread Central; Film Shortage; Hulu; IMDb; TV Tropes; YouTube
A woman stands on a wharf at a lake (or river, or whatever), where she scatters the ashes of her late mother. It seems she was planning to kill herself after that, but changes her mind. However, things soon turn horrific. And that's all I want to say, but it's a decent short, I guess.

The Rizzle (4:22)
Film Shortage; Films Short; Hulu; IMDb; TV Tropes; YouTube
A girl is watching online videos from the 1920s. One of them is a weird dance called the Rizzle. And... I found it pretty predictable what would happen, but I suppose it was still creepy.

The Box (4:01)
Hulu; IMDb; TV Tropes; YouTube
A boy is playing wizard, out in the woods, when he stumbles on a locked box. He takes it back home and opens it, and finds a note inside. He reads the note. I don't want to say what happens next, but I thought it was fairly predictable and not terribly scary. I mean, it probably would have been a bit scary if it were more original, I guess. *shrug*

Lippy (5:04)
Finite Productions; Hulu; IMDb; Lucy Campbell; TV Tropes; YouTube
Two young women go into a pharmacy and shoplift some lipstick. A security guard takes them into a detention room and makes a very disturbing demand. I don't want to say any more, but it's a very weird and creepy little film.

Haunted, Horrifying Sounds from Beyond the Grave (5:49)
Hulu; IMDb; Rodney Ascher; YouTube
A sound engineeer is hired to record a Halloween sound effects record, which he considers beneath him, but the producer convinces him to do it anyway. So, he wants to make sure it's the most genuinely terrifying sound effects record ever made. Honestly, I don't think he succeeded, at least not if anyone listening to it doesn't know (or believe) the story behind how it was made. But since we get to see it... it is pretty disturbing.

The Gillymuck (4:29)
Dan Samiljan; Hulu; IMDb; TV Tropes; YouTube
A group of girls are on a camping trip, and their troop leader tells scary stories around the campfire. One thing she mentions is "the Gillymuck," a creature that lives in those very woods, which will get very upset if you mock it. Which a few of the girls do, because they're jerks, who also mock another one of the girls. The latter girl goes out later that night and discovers a cute, strange little creature, which she brings back to the tent... That's all I'll say plotwise, but I definitely thought it was a decent little film.

Carved (5:20)
Bloody Disgusting; Hulu; IMDb; Justin Harding; TV Tropes; YouTube
This begins with a farmer out in a field, cutting pumpkins from their vines and tossing them in a wheelbarrow. One of them kind of looks like it already has a face, and both the creepy music and the cawing of a nearby crow swell as that one gets cut. The scene then shifts to customers roaming the lot where the farmer is selling pumpkins. A kid spots the "ugly" one, and insists his father buy it for him. (I mean, really monumentally brattily insists.) Once again the scene shifts, to the family back home carving all their jack-o-lanterns and having fun. The ugly one is the last in line to be carved, and I'd say what happens next is entirely predictable. In fact, I must have seen more than one horror short with this basic premise before I saw this one. But it's still pretty good. I mean, it has decent visual effects, and really great spooky music, and great use of the crow. And stuff. So I'm not surprised that the short won this year's award among all the film fest entrants. Note: made into a full-length film in 2024.

The Hug (5:10)
Hulu; IMDb; TV Tropes; YouTube
A kid named Aden is having a birthday party at a pizza place with a robotic panda that's supposed to do a show, and um... I dunno. It's weird. Not so much scary as redonkulous. But it was okay, and I liked the song that played over the end credits, I guess.

The Dunes (6:22)
Hulu; YouTube
A woman and her boyfriend are running on a beach, and the woman loses her favorite necklace. Then she sees a creepy old woman. And stuff happens. I dunno, I felt pretty "meh" about this one.

Flagged (7:17)
Chelsea Lupkin; Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
A woman takes a job as a moderator for a social media company. She has to watch any video content that has been flagged as potentially inappropriate, and then decide whether or not to delete it. Late at night, after everyone else has left the office, she sees something disturbing. And that's all I want to say. This one was maybe a bit better than "The Dunes," but still not anything I found particularly memorable.

Hidden Mother (5:22)
Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
A recently widowed mother of an infant is given an antique photo and frame by her sister. The photo is of a 19th century baby, and the sister explains to the widow about hidden mother photography of that era. The woman puts the picture in her own baby's nursery, and later that night hears something strange over the baby monitor, so she goes to investigate. I won't say what she finds, though it's somewhat predictable. But this was the first short in this year's anthology that I found genuinely creepy, and made me start thinking I might actually make a review page for the anthology.

Ride (6:47)
Hulu; IMDb; Meredith Alloway; YouTube
A woman's friend gets her to join a spin class at the gym, and... things get intense. I don't know what else to say, except this was my least favorite of this year's shorts.

The Ripper (5:50)
Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
This is one of my favorites in this year's batch of shorts. It's a really funny horror comedy about a band that's practicing one of their songs. The singer/lead guitarist surprises the back-up guitarist by asking him to do a solo in the middle of the song, but he says he doesn't do solos, because he's not a "ripper." However, he finally agrees to show the band's leader something special that he can do to spice up their shows, and it's definitely an unexpected talent. I won't say more than that, but this is definitely a short that I can recommend.

Swiped to Death (7:29)
Bloody Disgusting; Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
We see a man looking at profiles on a dating app, while elsewhere in the city, a woman is doing the same. When they get to each other's profiles, they start texting each other, and wind up making a date for that night. And... I won't spoil anything else. I found it pretty predictable, but still reasonably amusing and interesting, I guess.

Undo (7:10)
Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
This is another one of my favorites from this year. It's actually set on Halloween, though that's somewhat incidental. A scientist invents a small time machine... which for now can only rewind time by a few seconds, within a very small field. However, now that he's proven that time travel is possible, he believes the technique will eventually be able to work on a much larger scale, possibly going back decades or longer. It might even be possible to put an end to death itself. He's about to celebrate his first successful test of the device, when he sees a creepy figure outside his house. He thinks it's just an intruder, but I had a different suspicion... which turned out to be wrong. But I think the final reveal is better than my guess, anyway.