Four TikTok Horror Filmmakers

Afternoon Delights
Written By Rob Dean

TikTok! It’s the thing enjoyed by your tween niece to a worrying degree as well as by your conspiracy-addled former friend from high school, which is even more worrying. It’s possibly spying on you and cultivating all sorts of intrusive data (how does it know so much about what your zodiac sign is, what you’re googling, or even your interests? how is it using that information elsewhere?).

BUT it’s also a tremendous source for all sorts of different visual and audio works that range from the cringeworthy all the way to burgeoning maestro. It’s true that the algorithm is mostly powered by trends of people using the same audio or filter or doing variations on the same scenario. And all this comedy, music, opinion, performance, news, and more is done in a truncated amount of time (previously up to one minute, now slowly becoming three minutes, with a 10-minute threshold on the horizon).

Out of the many users and creators on the social media platform, there are some artists that emerge with a real unique approach to their craft and use the constraints of the medium to their advantage. The phone screen is such a limited amount of space that first person POV seemingly evolved from video games can be used for hilarious and terrifying purposes. Similarly, the commonplace type of phone cameras used by most on the platform allow for filmmakers to use a found footage approach that feels eerily grounded in reality to a disturbing degree. Here, in no particular order, are four filmmakers on TikTok who have a definite voice and talent as they craft short but extremely effective tales.

Shortest Blockbusters

Using a lot of computer generated artifacts, often mixed with real smartphone footage, Shortest Blockbuster creates effective jump scares and bizarre experiences that efficiently set the scene and tell a story. Like the rest of these channels (and the best of any such TikTok accounts), it’s all killer no filler.

Here’s the link to the channel and an example below:

Celtic Pure

Celtic Pure takes a horror story that is anywhere from a sentence to paragraph long, with the last few moments becoming a creepy twist that feels born of creepypasta, campfire tales, and maybe even a touch of EC Comics. The calm narration with essentially normal imagery instills a sense of realistic terror waiting for folks in their neighborhoods.

Here’s the link to the channel and an example below:

dannyfdonahue

Danny Donahue is a filmmaker with clear aspirations for making longer features and expanding on his already apparent (and impressive) imagination. He often culls multiple TikTok videos into one longer film for his YouTube channel, but there are also shorts and posts specific to the YT account. Donahue makes a bunch of different videos on his TikTok channel, ranging from video essays, to graphics tests, to other genres beyond horror. But his horror works are very impressive and show how limitation can breed innovation to tell short stories very effectively.

Here’s the link to the channel and an example below:

@dannyfdonahue #ad Did I scare you? Watch #TheConjuring The Devil Made Me Do It, in theaters and streaming on HBO Max starting June 4! #ConjuringHorror ♬ Conjuring Horror (Contains music from Witch Perch by Joseph Bishara) - The Conjuring

LIGHTS ARE OFF

Arguably the most famous horror TikTok account? Certainly one whose videos seem to circulate around the web the most (and have even been featured on this site before). LIGHTS ARE OFF (or lights.are.off) is a blend of creepypasta’s exaggerated and unsettling faces, mixed with a bit of Junji Ito’s style, a smidge of pop culture criticism, a dash of silliness, all deployed through expert and immersive POV that produces exceptionally frightening moments that will linger long after your heart stops racing like a jackrabbit. It’s hard to know if they could be expanded into features—though they seem primed for use in horror video games—but LIGHTS ARE OFF takes off-putting images with common fears and frightening situations to make some of the best bursts of terror around.

Here’s the link to the channel and an example below:

Rob Dean
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