3 Minute Horror 'Tired' Will Make You Stay Awake...
What visits you at night?
Fear of the Dark is natural, fear of being alone is natural, so when you put those two together how could anyone have a quiet night's sleep again?
Cut back in time to 2014, it's not exactly decades but whatever, I heard about a shortfilm competition run (in part) by the Horror Channel here in the U.K.
Filmmakers were asked to submit a 3 Minute Horror Film that would be the pilot idea for a Full Feature....how could I resist?
The competition was called Shortcuts to Hell 2 after their previous 666 Shortcuts to Hell in 2013.
I believe the best way to be seen as a filmmaker is to share your work and by entering competitions like this you'll (hopefully) open yourself up to an audience.
So limited time, limited budget (not a problem for me as I have no money anyways) and a FAST approaching deadline i came up with the plot for TIRED.
The plot
A man who's exhausted all the time, has another bad night, in the morning see's an advert for an app that can record you while you sleep. Figuring he'll be able to listen back to his sleep pattern and hear if he's sleep walking, he downloads it. However when he plays back the recording he learns what real horror is.......
Hopefully that wet your appetite! So here's the full short below!
The shortfilm didn't win, which is fair enough actually. There were plenty of talented shorts in the run and i'd recommend you hunt them down (if you can find them).
Think we could have made the short look and feel better with more shooting-time but no point crying over it now.
It was shot over 2 nights with only myself and lead actor Tim Shread on set...well Tim's pad anyways. We had less then a week before the end of the competition and this is what we achieved. Make-up fx were done by myself on....myself.
Those contact lenses really killed by the way AND (ironically) they appear completely different then I had intended which turned out better, but still....OUCH!
I'm really happy we managed to get it shot BUT must admit i'd love to have another go with the story.
My original vision had a creature that was draining the very life force out of it's victims. Something that I liked as it would explain why everyone's so tired after having a long sleep......
The short made it into the Final 23 entries but no further and got an honorable mention on the Official Fright-fest website. It's still interesting to be a part of the show, even as a footnote.
And en-case you wondered what my MOVIE pitch for Tired was, here it is (we were required to send these in once we'd made it through the rounds)
About the Creator
Matt Loftus
Horror-obsessed writer and Filmmaker
Read my ramblings here and see my short films on YouTube:MattLoftus85
My TikTok @mattloftus85
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