Grandma, May I

The scouts

A spirit-grandmother offering dark wishes on Mischief Night sounds like it should be insufferable tweeness, but Zanghi commits to the mythic wrongness of it—this isn't a cute ghost story, it's genuinely unsettling in ways most coming-of-age horror shorts chicken out on.

The film understands its lineage clearly: folk-horror and threshold narratives sit in conversation here, and the formal control—tonal restraint, pacing discipline—suggests a filmmaker conscious of the tradition they're working within rather than pastiche.

The decision to let the grandmother's performance carry the ambiguity—is she predatory, maternal, or something worse?—without the usual horror-film signposting makes every interaction land differently; that singular restraint is what transforms a premise into something that actually haunts.

Reviews

A cunning spirit posing as a kindly grandmother offers solace and dark wishes to lonely children on Mischief Night. When a heartbroken boy stumbles upon her, she sees the perfect opportunity to fulfill his desires — but at a chilling cost.