Before breaking out with horror sensation Lights Out, moving on to studio franchise horror filmmaking with Annabelle: Creation, and taking a crack at big-budget superhero filmmaking with Shazam!, director David F. Sandberg got his start making crafty, creepy, sneaky short films, deftly using prosumer gear and editing software to yield incredible results — often accompanied by his wife, muse, and collaborator Lotta Losten. In fact, Lights Out first began as a short he expanded into a feature film. Now, amidst a self-quarantine period during the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, Sandberg and Losten have returned to their roots and delivered us a new short horror film: Shadowed.
In just under three minutes, Sandberg delivers some genuinely inventive, impressive visual effects used to great spookiness. You see, Losten keeps seeing pesky “shadow things” that seem to exist in a shadow realm, but not in real life. It starts off innocent enough — a vase only her shadow can pick up — but gets scary, quickly. Sandberg calls the work “sort of a companion piece to our short Lights Out,” but I just might call this one a little more effective and promising of future explorations in this space. Plus: Sandberg is promising to explain how he did it all on Twitter, and I can’t wait.
Check out Shadowed in its gripping, creeping, ingeniously low-budget three minute entirety below. For more on what Mr. Sandberg is up to, check out his incredible breakdown on how they converted Shazam! into 3D.
