Highway
Written & Directed by Vanessa Gazy
2016, Australia
A young hitchhiker gets warnings about calamitous future events over the radio in this accomplished, Twilight Zone-esque short.
The filmmakers create a great sense of atmosphere throughout.
Auteur Gazy also made the short films Foal (2015) and Shiloh (2018) and is the creator of the television series Eden (2021).
Setaceous
Written & Directed by Tel Benjamin
2017, Australia
A late-night car alarm turns out to be much more than an annoyance to the residents of a suburban neighborhood in this well-made piece of automotive terror from short form veteran Benjamin.
The filmmaker next made the futuristic short film The Obscure (2018).
Explosions
Directed by Christopher Frey
Written by Christopher Frey
2012, Australia
Unhampered by dialogue, auteur Frey delivers a nightmarish but beautiful piece about the failure of gravity.
You’ll want to watch Explosions more than once.
Frey has made several other short films but Explosions is his most accomplished work to date.
Curve
Written & Directed by Tim Egan
2016, Australia
This is a visually striking, enigmatic piece of cinematic terror that fans of Vincenzo Natali’s 1997 debut feature Cube and Kristoffer Aaron Morgan’s great 2011 short No Way Out will adore.
While it might be tempting to classify Curve as the type of short film that comes off as the first scene of longer story, the short actually works best as the puzzling and self-contained piece of short-form horror that it is.
Perished
Written & Directed by Aaron McCann & Stefan Androv Radanovich
2011, Australia
This accomplished piece of apocalyptic cinema is obviously not for any readers suffering from zombie burnout.
For those readers not afflicted with that particular cinematic condition, you are in for an intense and very well made look at one man’s struggle with the end of the world as he knows it.
Perished has shades of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and that is intended as a very strong compliment.
Cargo
Directed by Ben Howling & Yolanda Ramke
Screenplay by Yolanda Ramke
2013, Australia
At this point in cinematic history, it’s very difficult to make something special in the zombie subgenre.
Ben Howling (great name for a horror director) and Yolanda Ramke do just that with Cargo as the directing duo puts the focus on the devastating personal losses that follow in the wake of a plague of the undead.