Unnamed Footage Festival 8 Short Films Collection (2025) [Unnamed Footage Festival]

Posted on by Jim Cox

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Found footage fans rejoice as this year’s Unnamed Footage Festival celebrates its 8th anniversary, and, once again, brings some of the newest genre releases to you. As per usual, we take a look at just a few of the substantial number of short films showcased throughout the festival.

Devil’s Prism (2025)

Devil’s Prism is a 2025 found footage horror short written and directed by Kika Magalhães, with additional writing by Chris Marrone. Presented entirely from Gabi’s perspective, the film follows a thief who joins her friends for a routine heist, leading to an unsettling encounter with a mysterious object that unleashes a dark entity, taking possession of her.

While beginning as a crime thriller, the short wastes very little of its screentime before plunging its audience into its horror elements. While the highly kinetic performances surge the narrative forward at a breakneck pace, the simplistic story prevents any incomprehension at its progression. Additionally, the film’s effects, though restrained, are fantastically implemented despite the budgetary limitations.

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Out of Bounds (2023)

Out of Bounds is a 2023 found footage horror short written and directed by Rob Ulitski. Having somehow fallen past the boundaries of our reality, an injured woman must remain motionless in the beam of a flashlight to avoid a malevolent force in the shadows.

Out of Bounds presents an incredibly unique premise that, while fairly contained, delivers an intriguing and mysterious narrative filled with paranoia and unseen horrors. Although it is clearly made on a shoestring budget, the short effectively delivers an alluring premise of foreboding apprehension—its five-minute runtime only amplifying this. Furthermore, with strong performances from the two lead actors, their acting serves as the driving force of the story.

Hexham Heads (2024)

Hexham Heads is a 2024 experimental found footage horror film written and directed by Chloe Delanghe and  Mattijs Driesen. Two Celtic stone heads unearthed in Haxham, England, harbor an encoded force that manifests itself upon discovery, psychically tormenting those who find them in a haunting feedback loop.

Inspired by the real case of the Hexham heads from the late 70s, the short is a recreation of a conglomeration of recorded stories and photographs from those who have had the displeasure of being the subject of the stone’s curse. Filmed on 16mm, the film captures the visual aesthetic of the time perfectly–drawing the audience into the enigmatic narrative. While the film’s experimental style may be off-putting to some, those with a taste for slow-burning, progressive tension are sure to get the most out of this progressive short.

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Spooky Stuff (2024)

Spooky Stuff is a 2024 faux-documentary written and directed by Craig Renfroe. A documentarian and camera operator discover peaceful ghosts attached to their objects in an antique mall: a woman who can’t give up her possibly fake fancy purse, a man in love with his barrel, a boy and his baseball, a wizened guy staring at a jawbone, and a young, giggling girl whose item remains a mystery. The documentarian soon discovers that a seller has unknowingly brought a cursed object into the mall and the evil entity attached to it is hunting these peaceful spirits. And it won’t stop until all the ghosts have been eliminated, including the two children.

Similar to the director’s previous short film, Catalog (2022), featured at Unnamed Footage Festival 6, the film strongly focuses on supernatural attachment to personal possessions. However, unlike the previous short, Spooky Stuff has an undertone of comedy over a more serious tone. Although this comedic tone can fall flat at points, there are some genuine laughs to be found here and there–these ghostly beings being unwittingly stuck together through proxy certainly adds a dampener to the afterlife. Additionally, with the introduction of a sinister being with ill intentions towards these harmless entities, the short implementation of horror adds a layer of tension and compliments the narrative’s comedy.

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We watched these short films as part of this year’s Unnamed Footage Festival.

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