“Dead Enders” – A Retail Nightmare – Horror Short Reviews

What could be worse than working the night shift at a dead end job? Maybe working the night shift at a dead end job while the world’s being invaded by monsters.

This is what happens in the sci-fi horror short film, Dead Enders, by Fidel Ruiz-Healy & Tyler Walker. It is now streaming on Alter’s YouTube channel, and you can also watch it at the end of this article. It might inspire you to get your own script ready for the next Killer Shorts Horror Short Screenplay Competition.

The Plot

The short begins with an oil drilling operation that ignores warnings from its workers and drills so deep that it unleashes mind-controlling parasites onto the world.

Meanwhile, at a nearby gas station, a young, disillusioned clerk named Maya is working the graveyard shift. And her world is about to be turned upside-down when the creatures come to her place of work. When one of them attaches itself to her, she is going to have to rethink her ambitions in life to fight it off.

Skarlett Red as Maya in “Dead Enders”

The Graveyard Shift

This short takes a large scale creature feature concept, but tells it mostly through a much smaller lens. It is not the story of the invasion, but the story of one person’s experience with the invasion. Throughout the second half, we see hints of a post-apocalyptic world outside the gas station, but not much more.

And despite its roots in campy monster movies, it’s shot with colorful lighting that’s more reminiscent of the giallo genre. This also helps to create a sort of stylized neon feel to a lot of it, especially to the surreal visions that the creatures send to the main character.

The creatures are done mostly with practical effects that look convincing. Yet there is also an appropriate level of camp to them, and moments, like when they show visions of a world run by the parasites, have a very comedic aspect to them.

But what the short is really about is one woman’s journey of self-discovery and decision to get her life together. At the beginning, she has very little ambitions in her life and career. But now, when the parasites offer her a new world where she has everything she wants, she must decide if she wants to reject their control in exchange for something greater.

What Makes It Killer

Dead Enders is a story of choosing to demand more out of life, wrapped in a neon-soaked apocalyptic monster movie. Many people reconsider their lives at some point. Very few do it under such extreme circumstances.

Watch it below.