‘A Special Day’: Watch the Chilling Found Footage Horror Short Shot Entirely on VHS-C

Looking for a horror short that gets under your skin without relying on jump scares? Filmmaker Dennis Cahlo delivers an unsettling experience with A Special Day, a four-minute found footage horror film shot entirely on VHS-C tape.

Inspired by the disturbing feeling of discovering a seemingly ordinary home video that captures something deeply wrong, A Special Day evokes the cursed recordings of Sinister. What begins as familiar family footage takes a disturbing turn, leaving viewers to piece together the horror for themselves.

A Found Footage Horror Short Made for Just $100

To achieve its authentic home-video aesthetic, Cahlo filmed A Special Day entirely on VHS-C tape. The format gives the short a grainy, unsettling look that makes the footage feel less like a conventional horror production and more like a private family recording that was never meant to be seen.

The film’s approach was inspired by Cahlo’s interest in true crime and the psychological power of what remains unseen. Rather than showing every disturbing detail, A Special Day invites viewers to imagine what happened beyond the footage.

Cahlo explained that listening to true crime cases made him increasingly disturbed by the experiences victims might have endured.

“And that’s when it hit me what’s really scary to me. It’s not seeing the actual horror, but having to piece together in your mind how it all happened,” the filmmaker explained. “And so I went about making a short that would do that.”

Despite its modest $100 budget, A Special Day draws inspiration from several acclaimed crime and thriller films, including Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Manhunter, and David Fincher’s Se7en.

The Horror Short That Inspired A Special Day

One of Cahlo’s biggest influences was Dead Grandma, a short film that left a lasting impression on the filmmaker because of the disturbing possibilities it suggested after the story ended.

“The biggest influence has to be Dead Grandma, a short from last year that blew me away,” Cahlo explained. “That scared me more than any horror movie I’ve seen in the last 10 years because of what I had to picture happening after the credits hit.”

He added, “It’s things like that which I find scarier than monsters or jump scares. And I really wanted to do that but in my own way.”

That philosophy sits at the heart of A Special Day. By leaving certain details to the viewer’s imagination, the short taps into a particularly uncomfortable kind of horror: the fear of understanding what might have happened without ever seeing it directly.

Dennis Cahlo Hopes to Make His Own Se7en

For Cahlo, A Special Day could also represent a step toward a larger filmmaking ambition. The director sees short films as opportunities to explore ideas that can eventually develop into more substantial projects.

“I think that every short film leads to a bigger project,” Cahlo noted.

Cahlo counts David Fincher among his favorite American directors and has long wanted to create his own fictional serial-killer film. He believes the ideas explored in A Special Day have helped him find a direction for that project.

“David Fincher is my favorite American director and I think we haven’t had a good fictional serial killer movie since Se7en. So I’ve always wanted to make my Se7en but I never had the catalyst for it. I think, now with what I tapped into with A Special Day, I’m ready to tackle it.”

Written, directed, and edited by Cahlo, A Special Day stars Sara Troficanto, Nick Westemeyer, and Dennis Cahlo, alongside Miles Westemeyer, making his introduction to the screen.

For horror fans drawn to found footage, cursed recordings, and stories that become more disturbing the longer you think about them, this four-minute short offers an unsettling alternative to traditional jump-scare horror.