Today is special – I have an intern! My ten-year-old daughter, who is a budding horror hound, asked if she could help me pick the short film. She requested something scary. Who am I to make a wish go unfulfilled? Here’s what we watched: A.J. Briones’s The Smiling Man.

Oh yeah. Mother of the year right here.

Personally, I thought that this was really good, despite the fact that this had clown DNA and I fucking hate clowns. I liked the limited cast, the use of makeup/corn syrup blood, and the creepiness of slender hands with long finger nails (seriously, that is the shit of nightmares for a girl). Having someone else with me this time around made it a different experience, as I had someone right next to me giving commentary throughout the six-minute duration. It’s a wild experience to sit down next to someone who is still growing in terms of embracing the genre, and really, if you’ve got to pick one to sink your teeth into at a young age, it’s horror. Here are her thougthts: “I hated that the girl had to see it [meaning, her dead mom], but I thought it was really good. I loved the makeup and all the graphics of blood. I don’t even know how they made that, but it was all just really good. I thought it set off the theme of scary for the horror film, and it really just sets the mood because the music – even I jumped, and I usually don’t get that scared at horror films. Personally, if I saw the balloons, and a smiling man, I’d just be like, ‘Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I’m not doing this. I’m not doing it at all.”

The apple did not fall far from the tree. Whatever you do, don’t follow the balloons. Happy Saturday.