Your Ticket Is Ready (2026)

Every now and then a short film pulls off a twist so cleanly that it reframes everything you have just watched, and Your Ticket Is Ready, Brianna Lee's short film, is one of those. The pick of her Halloween Nights shorts, it is a genuinely brilliant little ghost story with a lovely, Shyamalan-worthy sting in its tail. Four stars.

I am going to say as little as I possibly can about the plot, because this is a film whose pleasures depend almost entirely on not knowing where it is headed. The set-up is simple and eerie: Lee's character steps into what looks like an ordinary laundrette, lured in by a ghostly voice, only to find herself in the company of a smiling, deeply unsettling man, played with real menace by Peter Coleman, who seems to know far more about her and her past than he possibly should. From there, a creeping dread gathers, and a quiet thread of grief begins to wind through it.

What makes it special is how it marries that dread to genuine feeling. This is not just a spook-you short, it has real emotion running underneath, and when its twist finally arrives it is both a jolt and, on reflection, perfectly, sadly inevitable, the kind of ending that is smartly set up and genuinely moving rather than a mere gotcha. Coleman is excellent, and Lee directs the whole thing with a confident, unshowy hand.

Four stars. Your Ticket Is Ready is a brilliant, atmospheric and surprisingly poignant little horror, anchored by a creepy turn from Peter Coleman and a twist that properly earns its payoff. For a short of its size it punches well above its weight, and it is comfortably the standout of Lee's Halloween Nights batch for me. Go in knowing as little as possible.

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