VOTD: 'Hazard' Horror Short Will Make You Terrified Of Your Car's Emergency Lights

It's Halloween, and everyone is entitled to one good scare. This year, we've got a short called Hazard from filmmaker Gairo Cuevas, a cinematographer and editor for the creative content department at Pixar Animation Studios. This week, he's screening his horror short on the animation studio's campus just in time to bring some last minute scares for All Hallow's Eve, and thankfully, he's made it available online for you to make your spine tingle. Watch the Hazard horror short below.

The set up is pretty basic as a young woman finds herself stuck in the middle of nowhere after he car broke down. The short mixes classic horror elements and style, including a car and a leading lady that feel like throwbacks to the 1950s, with the modern world as a friend en route teases and convinces the stranded woman to summon the urban legend ghost of a mass shooter by chanting his name while her hazard lights flash.

You've seen plenty of horror tales with this same basic concept, usually in a dark bathroom. But it's the dark setting in the middle of nothing and the flashing of hazards in the absolute darkness that create real suspense and dread. The warm hue of the lights make the proceedings even more ominous. You know where this is going, but that anticipation only heightens the terror.

Cuevas,  explained how inspiration came while his dog was dropping off some fertilizer:

I was walking my dogs super early one morning while it was still pitch black, and then a parked car flashed its lights at us. Then the lights turned off. At first I was annoyed, and then scared when I realized nobody was in the vehicle. I wanted to run away immediately, but then my dogs felt it was the right time to do their business (they know no fear). It was in that moment, while picking up doggy poop, that the idea for Hazard hit me. Any driver will tell you that at some point your car will break down, and you just better hope it never happens at night because you never what or who might be out there waiting for you.

Hopefully your car doesn't break down any time soon. Happy Halloween!