The Green Ruby Pumpkin
2023 · 3m
Directed by Miguel Ortega
Tones: theatrical, whimsical
A magical green ruby pumpkin appears among trick-or-treat guests in an enchanting Halloween fantasy of costumes and wonder.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A green ruby pumpkin in a Halloween fantasy—it's almost there, almost a premise that breaks something open, but it settles into exactly the whimsical family fare you'd expect, which means it's not really asking the question at all.
Ortega's theatrical staging and the formal precision of costume design within a three-minute frame suggests a filmmaker thinking carefully about visual composition and the lineage of enchantment narratives—this is craft aware of its own tradition.
The film lives or dies on whether that pumpkin reveal lands with genuine strangeness rather than cuteness, and the editing choice of *when* to show it fully will determine if three minutes feels like enough world-building or just a sketch.