2025 Official Winners
A season archive of official winners, category winners, scripts, special awards, and honorable mentions.
2025 Season
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Category
Winner: Best Short Film Script 1st Place
Best Short Film Script
Writer: Arthur Ericsson
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Winner: Best Short Film Script 2nd Place
Best Short Film Script
Writer: Mićo Ivanović
David is a super friendly guy during the day. But is he really that friendly at the end of the day?
Winner: Best Short Film Script 3rd Place
Best Short Film Script
Writer: Eric Gorodetsky
After moving into a new apartment, a grieving woman begins receiving voicemails from herself — but not from her.
Category
Winner: Jury Award Winner
Jury Award Winner
Director: RJ Maurer
A cold-blooded sniper hunts down a mysterious briefcase in 1998 Kern County
Category
Winner: Best Feature Film Screenplay 1st Place
Best Feature Film Screenplay
Writer: Cameron A. Straughan
Logline In a rigid theocratic future, a gender non-conforming astronaut leads a fractured crew to investigate a mysterious deep-space anomaly that manifests their fears and grotesquely mutates them, forcing humanity toward a terrifying new stage of evolution. Tone Solaris meets Event Horizon. Synopsis In a militaristic theocracy, a deep-space anomaly begins emitting strange signals. Military officials assemble the crew of the Nova II based on psychological profiles, sending them on a year-long mission to investigate. Their leader is Casey Adler, an independent, gender non-conforming astronaut. Among the crew are a zealot priest haunted by his past, a volatile mechanic masking deep insecurities, a disabled technician burdened by guilt, and two psychologists secretly observing the crew for an unseen authority. When the Nova II encounters the anomaly, waves of alien energy surround the ship. The crew suffers headaches, hallucinations, and violent psychological breakdowns as their deepest fears begin to manifest. As paranoia and violence spread, the psychologists realize the mission was never meant to save the crew — only to gather data. When Adler ventures alone into the anomaly, they return transformed. Reality fractures. Bodies mutate. Identities merge. The anomaly begins reshaping the crew into something new. Humanity is evolving. Whether it wants to or not. Awards & Recognition • Nominee - Best Writing – Feature Script, HorrorHound Weekend Film Festival (Spring 2026) • Finalist – The Dark Fest (2026) • Finalist – 13Horror.com Screenplay Contest (2026) • Finalist – Oregon Screams Horror Film Festival (Winter 2026) • Finalist – The Dunwich Horror Fest (2025) • Semi-Finalist - A Night of Horror International Film Festival (2026) • Semi-Finalist - MidWest WeirdFest (2026) • Semi-Finalist - Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Awards (2026) • Nominee - International Indie Film & Screenplay Festival (2026) • Quarterfinalist - Atlanta Film Festival Screenplay Competition (2026) • Quarterfinalist – Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards: Diversity XIII (2026) • Quarterfinalist – Emerging Screenwriters Screenplay Competition (2026) • Official Selection – Horror Screenings Film Festival Bloody Mirror (2026) • Official Selection — The Dark Fest (2026) • Official Selection — Philip K. Dick Science Fiction & Supernatural Film Festival (2026) • Official Selection – Los Angeles Fantasy Fest (2025) • Official Selection – Blockbuster Screenwriting Contest (2025) • Ranked 5th out of 134 submissions at Oregon Screams Horror Film Festival (Score: 90/100) • Ranked #2 out of 109 submissions at Austin After Dark Film Festival (Score: 90/100) Selected Praise “The script has a strong visual style and a bold voice.” — Austin After Dark Film Festival Judge “Bold images like the pulsating anomaly and the body horror of the pineal gland felt disturbing and fresh.” — Austin After Dark Film Festival Judge “Smart thought experiment about identity, consciousness, and manipulation by institutions.” — Oregon Screams Horror Film Festival Judge “Body horror with a clear thematic spine, not just gross-out for the sake of it. A grim, stylish space parable where identity fractures, faith curdles, and evolution shows up like a crime scene photographer.” — 13Horror.com Film & Screenplay Contest “Ambitious concept, deep philosophical themes, and excellent world-building.” — Bloody Mirror Film Festival Schisma received an 8.4 average reader score from three reviewers at the Bloody Mirror Film Festival, praised for its “ambitious cosmic scope and fearless exploration of human metamorphosis.”
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Winner: Best Feature Film Screenplay 2nd Place
Best Feature Film Screenplay
Writer: Angela Thorne
The reality distortion of FIGHT CLUB meets the shadowy foreboding of REBECCA when a hallucinating Senator’s daughter, isolated and exiled to the home where her sister died, must cling to sanity as her image-obsessed mother drives her toward madness—and a killer closes in.
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Winner: Best Feature Film Screenplay 3rd Place
Best Feature Film Screenplay
Writer: Don Stroud
Discovering a derelict NASA space capsule floating in the middle of the Pacific ocean, a disillusioned Air Force pilot and his family fight for their lives against a covert military force bent on retrieving the astronauts and their other-worldly payload.
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Winner: Best Short Film 1st Place
Best Short Film
Director: Victor Basallote
Rachel, a bored and insomniac young woman, contacts Zalir through a dating APP, a creature who will do the impossible to make their paths cross, forever...
Winner: Best Short Film 2nd Place
Best Short Film
Directors: Evalee Lowrey, Brenna Crace
A young photo store clerk finds a mysterious envelope of film negatives. Upon developing them, he discovers a sinister connection to the photographer.
Winner: Best Short Film 3rd Place
Best Short Film
Director: Michelle Bossy
Set in a dystopian near future where everyone is provided with a 24-hour warning before their death by the government, Mariam receives such a call from Bob, a real-life operator that is on his first day on the job, informing her of her final day.
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Winner: Best Feature Film 1st Place
Best Feature Film
Director: Michael Thomas Cain
Fred Astoria (Tut Gregory), a beloved Hollywood star and dancer, is receiving bizarre death threats in the noirish comedy TOP HATE -- and all of his celebrity colleagues are suspects. These include his former dance partner Ginseng Roget (Kellyrose Marry), archrival Keane Shelley (Mark Ashin), stalking comedienne Katherine Heartburn (Emma Denson) and simpering British butler Simcox (Ed Altman). While dodging multiple murder attempts, Astoria first seeks advice from his close friends Carmen Miranda-Wright (Jasmine Dorothy Haefner) and Oscar Le Vile (Mark Parsia), then consults with private investigator Tyree Fingerlake (Xander Jackson), before finally visiting Janey Stompanelli (Sean Young), the mob’s top enforcer in the City of Angels. Presented in black and white and set during the Golden Age of Hollywood, TOP HATE is written and produced by Joe Queenan (columnist at THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and author of 12 books including RED LOBSTER, WHITE TRASH AND THE BLUE LAGOON and IF YOU'RE TALKING TO ME, YOUR CAREER MUST BE IN TROUBLE) and directed by Michael Thomas Cain (writer and director of “Eliminated” and “Not Approved For Cancer Treatment”). It features a lush original score by Kinny Landrum, the Emmy-nominated composer, arranger and keyboard player whose talents are on full display in David Lynch’s TWIN PEAKS, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME and WILD AT HEART). To top all that, TOP HATE stars the legendary Sean Young (BLADE RUNNER, NO WAY OUT, and DUNE).
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Winner: Best Feature Film 2nd Place
Best Feature Film
Director: Steve Wood
Sam is a guy who is always down on his luck and today is no exception, it’s his birthday and has a night out with his friends, things then turn from bad to worse, has any luck he had finally ran out. Dark comedy.
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Winner: Best Feature Film 3rd Place
Best Feature Film
Director: Samuel Freeman
When a couple's phones begin recording on their own during a camping trip, what they capture isn't just darkness. It's something that wants to be seen. 🔥 “A groundbreaking found footage film that people will be talking about for decades to come.” — Adrian Țofei (Be My Cat) 🏆 Winner – Most Innovative Film, Unnamed FootageFestival 2026 🏆 Winner – Best Feature, Birmingham Horror Film Festival 2025 🏆 Winner - Best Horror Film, Wallachia International Film Festival 2025 🎬 Official Selection – New Jersey Film Festival 2026 🎬 Official Selection – New York CineFest 2026 🎬 Official Selection – Toronto Indie Horror Film Festival 2026 🎬 Official Selection – GASP! Horror Film Festival 2026 🎬 Official Selection – Unnamed Footage Festival 2026
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Honorable Mention: Best Short Film Honorable Mention
Best Short Film
Director: Johnny Brindle
Zee clashes with the prison mandated therapist over her "diagnosis", her rights, and her very existence.
Honorable Mention: Best Short Film Honorable Mention
Best Short Film
Director: John Borowski
An ordinary day in the life of a Senior woman named Harriet -- with a little dark comedy suspense twist! A fitting commentary on both the pharmaceutical industry & women in unfulfilled life-long marriages.
Honorable Mention: Best Short Film Honorable Mention
Best Short Film
Director: Gabriel Milessis Braga
After collapsing at the altar, Elise awakens inside an old church, and something inside her has changed. Guided by a mysterious man who seems to understand her condition, she begins to confront a new, terrifying hunger. The First Night is a gothic meditation on becoming, resistance, and the quiet seduction of darkness in our lifes.
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Winner: Best Micro Short
Best Micro Short
Director: Carlos Estevan
An old man loses his head
Category
Winner: Best Noir/Neo Noir Short 1st Place
Best Noir/Neo Noir Short
Directors: John Klein, Steve Kniss
Advanced Mathematics Professor Ruby Finnegan is drowning in obscurity and mediocrity. She needs to publish the paper she’s dedicated the last decade of her life on, but her math isn’t quite working out. When she ropes her T.A. Aiza Tahan into helping her, their relationship begins to fracture and spiral out of control.
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Winner: Best Noir/Neo Noir Short 2nd Place
Best Noir/Neo Noir Short
Director: Alexander Krahl
A washed-up private eye takes on a missing-person case that plunges him through the chaotic nightlife of Dresden's Neustadt—into absurdity, madness, and a truth stranger than fiction.
Winner: Best Noir/Neo Noir Short 3rd Place
Best Noir/Neo Noir Short
Director: Michael McCallum
A down and out trombone player finds himself at a crossroads with his career and life in a dark, wet alley at night.
Category
Winner: Best Cinematography
Best Cinematography
Director: Michael McCallum
A down and out trombone player finds himself at a crossroads with his career and life in a dark, wet alley at night.
Category
Honorable Mention: Best Short Film Screenplay Honorable Mention
Best Short Film Screenplay
Writer: Peter Hardy
A woman attending a theatre performance that takes place in an old house begins to realize that she is seeing people on stage that no one else see -- a young maid being terrorized by a cruel master, ghosts from the house's past.
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Winner: Best Special Effects
Best Special Effects
Director: Chris Shern
A up and coming Foley artist is hired to create sound effects for a horror film, but the job triggers forces that goes beyond what's on the screen.
Category
Winner: Best Performance
Best Performance
Director: Michelle Bossy
Set in a dystopian near future where everyone is provided with a 24-hour warning before their death by the government, Mariam receives such a call from Bob, a real-life operator that is on his first day on the job, informing her of her final day.
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Winner: Audience Choice Award
Audience Choice Award
Director: Walter Ernest Haussner
Inspired by Evan Hunter’s (The Birds, High and Low) early short story The Last Spin, Xpendable tells the story of a dispute between two crime organizations and the decision to settle matters with a representative from each “club”. Whereas the original story dealt with juvenile males from rival gangs, Xpendable shifts the focus to age and gender, along with a dose of black humor. Filmed in Medford and Jacksonville, Oregon, over four days during 2022 and featuring actors Preston Mead, Annette MacGregor, Adam Lewis, Jeffrey Hunter, and Johnny Whelchel, along with a production crew consisting of family and friends, Xpendable is director/producer Walter Haussner’s love letter to Film Noir and David Mamet’s view that “Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance”.
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