Eight minutes. One motel room. Zero chance you'll sleep tonight.
After confronting her fiancé, Paul, in a cheap motel, Betty discovers the horrifying secret that has kept him from sleeping for days.
Practical Effects
The creature design will haunt your actual dreams.
Direction
Sims squeezes more dread into 8 minutes than most features manage.
Cinematography
Motel lighting so ugly it becomes terrifying.
Director
Aaron Sims
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Aaron Sims created this as a proof-of-concept after years as a creature designer for Stranger Things and A Quiet Place. The creature's jerky, unnatural movement was achieved through reverse photography and practical puppetry.
This short predates the 2020 sleep paralysis documentary The Nightmare but helped spark a wave of indie horror exploring the phenomenon, including the viral 'Russian Sleep Experiment' creepypasta resurgence.
US
