Last week at Target, a man approached the woman behind me in line and starting talking about vampires.

With childlike wonder, he spoke earnestly of “the undead.” He remembered that in Interview with the Vampire, the vampire thought it would be best to turn the child into a vampire when her mother died. He mused on the psychological implications of being a child vampire, and then he apologized for talking too much about vampires. He explained that it all started with Count Chocula cereal, which is “undead because it’s a chocolate-eating vampire.”

This had to be the best one-sided conversation I’ve ever overheard.

Well! My last post flushed out enthusiasm for horror short films, so for those of you who wanted more, you got it. (Much arm-twisting occurred.) In honor of Halloween season, every TALC blog post in October will include at least one horror short film.

To this end, I’ve had to watch tons of horror shorts. The things I do for you guys. It is, after all, my responsibility to vet the films and to share only those that I enjoy and find impressive in some way. As with all art, this determination is subjective… you may not like what I like.

Please also note:

–I’m only sharing films with no profanity, no nudity, and zero to minimal gore.

–I’ve chosen from sub-genres ranging from psychological horror to fantastical horror to the supernatural and to the psycho killer, though even in the latter, there’s not much in the way of killing.

–There are two films in the bunch that I wouldn’t even say are horror films. They might be a little dark, but they’re much more drama than horror, in my opinion. They’re just excellent, beautiful short films. I’ll indicate those when I post them.

–Whether I share one or two films at a time, I’ll keep the total viewing time to less than 15 minutes. You can watch them in the space of a coffee break.

That said, here’s today’s spooky horror short film: Itsy Bitsy Spiders.  (Moral: encourage your child’s artistic inclinations.)

La Fin.