Halloween Nights 2026: Brianna Lee's Five Horror Shorts
Every year around this time, the writer-director Brianna Lee unleashes a fresh batch of horror shorts for her Halloween Nights series, streaming exclusively on Bloodstream, and this year she was kind enough to send five of them my way for an early look. Having reviewed her earlier shorts Home and The Camper, I was more than happy to spend a dark evening working through the lot, and what struck me most is the sheer range on display, from bloody practical-effects nasties to a genuinely poignant ghost story and a chillingly timely slice of techno-horror. Here is a quick, spoiler-free rundown of all five, worst to best, with full reviews of each over on the site.
Hungry
A lean, feral little creature piece. Lee plays a woman in a desperate, bloody predicament out in the woods, and the film becomes a primal, stripped-back study in survival and instinct. There is barely any story to it, but the practical effects are genuinely good, tactile and hand-made, and Lee throws herself fearlessly into the physicality. At five minutes it is more a sharp, bloody vignette than a full tale, but it draws blood and leaves you wanting more.
Tag
Two newlyweds come to a creepy backwater town, set out on an underwhelming spooky trail, and find their larking about taking a darker turn when something sinister makes itself known. The opening is a slow, slightly flat burn, but the payoff is nicely mean, a grim riff that weaponises the wedding vows themselves. A good idea held back by its pacing and its length, but it has a proper wicked streak.
Bump in the Night
The most conventionally well-made of the batch, and the most frustrating. A couple's romantic weekend away curdles when a nightly bumping sound only she can hear tips a cosy getaway into mounting paranoia. Lee builds the tension beautifully with a genuinely skin-crawling slow burn, which makes it all the more maddening that the ending stops rather abruptly and leaves more hanging than I would have liked. Cracking craft, shame about the finish.
Project Lonely
The most ambitious of the five, and the one that lingered longest. A lonely woman signs up to CompanAIon, an AI dating service that sends a real companion to her door, only for the fantasy of a perfect, always-available partner to turn quietly, creepingly sinister. It is horror with real thematic bite, a resonant and genuinely unsettling fable about artificial intimacy and control, handsomely shot by co-star Chris Bert, that builds to a bleak and pointed ending. Smart, timely and creepy.
Your Ticket Is Ready
The clear standout. Lee's character steps into an eerie laundrette and into the clutches of a smiling, sinister man, played with lovely menace by Peter Coleman, who seems to know far too much about her and her past. What begins as a creepy ghost story blossoms into something genuinely poignant, before a Shyamalan-worthy twist reframes the whole thing in one quietly devastating beat. Grief and dread braided together with real craft, and proof of just how much Lee can do in a few short minutes. Go in knowing as little as possible.
Taken together, the 2026 Halloween Nights shorts are a genuinely impressive showcase for a film-maker with range, ambition and a real feel for the genre. There is bloody fun, there are smart ideas, and in Your Ticket Is Ready there is a small gem. If you fancy some seasonal frights, the whole collection is well worth seeking out on Bloodstream, and my full reviews of each are up on the site.
