This Blender-Made Animated Horror Short Will Make You Feel So Much In Just Two

Amber RutherfordSenior Editor28 October 2026

"A story of early parenthood that preys on the fears of new parents. Someone is always watching..."

Michael Berardini's Monitor, an indie horror short that opened this year's Annecy International Animation Film Festival, first caught our attention back in 2024, when we featured it on 80 Level as a WIP shot. Now the film is finally finished, and it was definitely worth the year and a half Berardini spent making it, teaching himself Blender along the way. The short's music was composed by Batu Sener, with sound design handled by Jeremy Ben Ammar.

At just two minutes long, Monitor manages to make you feel a lot. The camera work is fantastic, the animation is incredibly smooth, and the whole thing is executed beautifully. It's genuinely terrifying, too. For parents, the short might hit a little closer to home: Berardini is a father of two himself. Beneath the supernatural horror are some very real fears: worrying that something might happen to your child, feeling like you're not doing enough to protect them, and dealing with the guilt and reluctance that can come with parenthood.

Berardini is also clear about where he stands on AI in creative work: it had no part in the making of Monitor.

"At no point did I consider using gen AI to speed up my workflow. Because the end product is not the point. Art is about the process. I learned a lot. Time well spent."

If you're in the mood for more animated shorts with stylized visuals, check out Leap of Faith, NOXIOUS (with its breakdown), and Ronde de Nuit:

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