Before we slip into the dark caress of the shadows for some Halloween mischief we’d like to leave you with one last horror-themed short, courtesy of Jose David Cifuentes Ulloa who gave us the heads up earlier this morning. SHHH is a short film by makeup effects artists Freddy Chavez Olmos and Shervin Shoghian that finds a young boy (Guillermo), tormented by his sister, overcoming his “monstrous” fears using the powers of his own imagination.
Partially crowd-funded, well shot and inspired by an interview with Guillermo del Toro who reveals his “childhood experiences with monster nightmares,” SHHH is a captivating and truly creepy tale that proves the things that go bump in the night can be just as frightening as a bully.
Guillermo, is frail, and afraid of his bullying sister, Helena. Putting pen to paper, he obsessively draws that which he fears the most: a hair-eating monster. While Helena mocks Guillermo for his vivid renditions, to him the monster is real. In fact, to ward off the freakish ghoul, Guillermo must feed it his own hair. Tired of being scared, Guillermo takes matters into his own hands. It’s only then that we realize the monster isn’t a figment of his imagination…but an extension of Helena herself.