Short Film Saturday: Zygote (2017)

It's got to be hard making short films, as no matter how great they may be, as they kind of disappear into the nether after their initial Festival Circuit runs are finished, if they are even lucky enough to get one.

That's why we've decided to showcase some of the many great Horror Shorts that are out there floating around the Interwebs: some are scary, some are fun, and every now and then, we even find one that's a work of art.

The bottom line is that plenty of time and effort went into making them, so they at least deserve to be seen, don't they?

"Stranded in an Arctic mine, two lone survivors are forced to fight for their lives, evading and hiding from a new kind of terror."

Neill Blomkamp's Oats Studios keeps on rolling out the quality short films, and their latest might just be their best.


Zygote needs to be a feature-length film in the worst way.

First off, Blomkamp does dystopian storylines with the best of them. He's also pretty brilliant on the Sci-fi front. Here, he mixes the two with a liberal amount of body Horror to create a Thing-like setting, with an ingenious Thing-like creature, and the entire 22-minute runtime is pretty intense and thrilling. And disturbing. And gory.

That Thing-like creature is the stuff of nightmares; not only does it look terrifying, but the screams... sweet Jesus.

Dakota Fanning does her best Ellen Ripley here, and she makes for one hell of a final girl. Jose Pablo Cantillo, who has long been a great character actor, makes for a convincing, and sympathetic, savior of sorts as well. 

The only thing that sucked about it is that it ended, and we need more!