If you have ever watched a horror film spoof or parody around the mid-2000s you could play bingo with the cliches and direct references. The cliches would be loud music stings, disappearing/ reappearing antagonist, and usually a ghost girl. The ghost girl design would undoubtedly be lifted from Samara of The Ring or Kayako from The Grudge with her pale white skin and long black hair. The little girl in Luna is also a pale-faced ghost with long dark hair that adheres to the cliches of the aforementioned films. What the audience gets from Luna is a tired concept that tries to redeem itself with a clever ending.

The short opens on a series of family photos and pans over to a father, mother, and boy that are in mourning of a recently lost family member. The boy, Luke, is suddenly confronted by the little girl from the family photos dressed in a dirty dress and a pale ghostly face. He tries to tell his dad who says he has to deal with it, and his mom is too upset looking at a photo album to respond. The ghostly sister proceeds to chase Luke around the house, culminating in Luke crying out for his dad from his bed. Luke’s dad comes in and tells the little girl, Luna, to take off the makeup and go to bed, they have to attend their grandmother’s funeral in the morning.

While the short is only 10 minutes long, the cliches bog it down and make it feel slow and shallow. With new horror films showing that you can be twice as effective by showing something scary and not announcing it, the music stings just come off as tired. An argument can be made that the joke ending excuses the obvious cliches but they just weaken the surprise as a whole. With some changes to the sound and less heavy-handed camerawork, this could be a clever and spooky short but instead, Luna feels like a short that was made in the 2000s and forgotten about until now.