Night Games
2023 · 9m
Directed by Henny Åman
Genres: coming-of-age, fantasy, horror
Tones: dark, surreal, whimsical
A young girl's wish comes true in the worst possible way in this unsettling Scandinavian creeper.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A wish-fulfillment horror that inverts the fairy tale into something genuinely grotesque—this is exactly the kind of premise that makes conventional scouts nervous, which is precisely why Åman nails it. Whimsical and unsettling in the same breath, refusing to pick a lane and somehow better for it.
Åman's tonal control—balancing dark fantasy against coming-of-age vulnerability—demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how genre operates in Scandinavian short cinema, where the surreal has always been a vehicle for psychological truth rather than spectacle.
The decision to let the 'worst possible way' unfold with restraint rather than graphic excess is what transforms this from premise into craft; that restraint, held across nine minutes, is what makes the creepiness actually linger.