Bug Bites
2021 · 8m · United States
Directed by Daniel DelPurgatorio
Genres: dark comedy, horror, surrealism
Tones: darkly comic, surreal, tense
A young tenant named Sandra starts finding nasty bug bites on her legs and calls in help, only to unravel surreal horrors connected to her bed that may be real or may be inside her own head.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
DelPurgatorio takes the most boring domestic complaint—bug bites, landlord calls—and twists it into something genuinely unhinged where you can't tell if Sandra's losing her mind or if the horror is literally in the mattress; it's exactly the kind of subversive, "wait what" premise that makes consensus critics squirm.
The film's commitment to sustaining ambiguity between psychological breakdown and supernatural invasion shows formal restraint; it positions itself thoughtfully within the surrealist-horror lineage without resorting to cheap reveals, maintaining tonal consistency across its compact runtime.
The decision to keep the camera mostly on Sandra's face and legs—intimate, unglamorous—as the surrealism creeps in is what sells the dread; that choice to strip away production spectacle and trust the actor's confusion as the only special effect is what makes eight minutes feel genuinely unsettling.
Reviews
this movie goes in some truly wild, gruesome, and dare I say darkly funny places as Sandra unravels horrors living in her bed (or possibly just in her own head). Whatever the truth, this short is truly a surreal experience and a hell of a ride.