More than anything, Bye Bye Baby exactly what horror films should be: fun.

Horror shorts do tend to follow in the footsteps of their full-length predecessors, and though Bye Bye Baby does pay homage to those famous home-alone scenes, director Pablo Pastor adds a unique touch both aesthetically and plot-wise.

The film follows a young woman (Karina Kolokolchykova) who decides to spend a quiet night at home with only the company of a black-and-white movie. After a friend calls, everything seems to go wrong, and with each inexplicable event that occurs, a question gnaws at her mind: is she really alone?

If there’s one aspect that sets films apart, it’s whether they show or tell the story. The dialogue of Bye Bye Baby is thankfully minimal, mostly relying on careful editing, suspenseful timing, and Karina Kolokolchykova’s performance as another solid scream queen. I hope to see more of her in the future.

Bye Bye Baby clearly takes inspiration from films like Scream and The Strangers, but looks as if Wes Anderson directed a Wes Craven film, with bright, saturated colors and symmetrical composition juxtaposed by grotesque imagery reminiscent to Dario Argento’s Suspiria. The cinematography is sharp and the overall design of the film is a nice mixture of modern and vintage. In just fifteen minutes, it builds up anguish and confusion to a strange, but effective, climax.

Bye Bye Baby is like a Halloween haunt maze: brief and succinct, creatively spooky, and all in good fun. Also similar to haunt mazes, I laughed quite a bit throughout; it wasn’t funny or laughable, but I have a nervous laugh. So, it was actually entirely out of fear.

And once again, in just fifteen minutes, I’m terrified to be home alone despite living in a seemingly friendly and mundane suburb.