This year, Halloween is going to be Legendary: Legendary Pictures has enlisted Guillermo Del Toro to help find new talent to helm future horror films. The Mexican director, who calls himself a “student, collector, and fan” of the genre has selected the five finalists in the YouTube Space House of Horrors contest “A Legendary Halloween.” They will reveal the winner on Halloween, of course.
The contest, which began on September 22, set out to find a “brave new voice of horror.” Popular YouTube users (with a 10K subscriber minimum) were invited to use YouTube Spaces — which are currently located in Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo — to create short horror films. The results have ranged from straight scares to flightier frights, but all videos made use of the Gothic set design, which was inspired by Del Toro’s own work.
The Legendary-Del Toro partnership is a natural one; the movie house released Del Toro’s 2013 robots-of-the-sea pic, Pacific Rim, along with backing his upcoming gothic romance, Crimson Peak (mil perdones, no trailer is available yet). And Del Toro, who describes his own take on horror as guided by humor, calls Legendary a “patron of the arts in horror.” But beyond this relationship, Del Toro has plenty of boo-na fides: though he’s best known for dark fantasy films like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, as well as the best installment in the Blade franchise (Blade II).
Watch Guillermo del Toro introduce the YouTube House of Horrors contest, and then check back on Halloween to see who won.
Here are the finalists.
Millennial Horror Story (written by Paul Gale and directed by T.J. Misny):
Internet Trolls – The Halloween Musical (directed by Vijay Nazareth)
The Passing (directed by John Wynn)
Dinner (written and directed by The Brothers Riedell)
Human Chair (directed by Pirates of Tokyo Bay)