In a medium where short films often meander before finding their hook, Sam Rudykoff’s Halfway Haunted grabs your attention immediately, drawing you into a world that feels deeply bizarre yet anchored in familiarity. Rudykoff’s cold open finds Jess (Hannan Younis) alone in a dingy apartment, practicing for a job interview – only to be interrupted by blood dripping from the ceiling and a fridge door creaking open to reveal a severed head. Her response is simply to sigh and exclaim ‘Gross!’ before returning to her interview practice.

From that first beat, Rudykoff establishes a world where horror collides with the mundane, and the supernatural is just another nuisance of modern life for Jess. This is a ghost story, but it’s also a housing crisis story, a millennial burnout story and a gentrification satire. Halfway Haunted’s sharp social commentary and genre-bending premise have earned the film a coveted place at the Oscar-qualifying 2025 HollyShorts Film Festival, where it will be making its premiere.

At its core, Rudykoff’s Halfway Haunted dares to flip the haunted house trope on its head. In this world, the ghost appears not to be the menace, but rather the only obstacle preventing a slick, pilates-toned landlady from flattening a home to make way for a sterile condo development. That landlady (played to grinning perfection by Sugar Lyn Beard) embodies the glossy soullessness of modern gentrification – bright whites, wellness platitudes, and predatory evictions.

Jess, played by the wonderfully grounded Hannan Younis, anchors the story with just the right mix of exasperation and grit. Her scenes with the ghost (a darkly witty Kristian Bruun) become the film’s secret weapon. The alliance of tenant and spectre feels absurd and offbeat, but lands as strangely empowering. In banding together, they appear to be not just pushing back against eviction, but fighting for Jess’ right to exist in a system that treats homes like profit margins.

Visually, the film is sharp and considered. The cinematography by Peter Schnobb creates an off-kilter domesticity, hinting at both the uncanny and the all-too-familiar. The space they inhabit feels haunted whilst also lived-in, which is precisely the point. For the very real forces of displacement and erasure lurk behind every door, capitalism lying in wait to strip away the shelter and security of those struggling to pay rent.

Rudykoff walks a tightrope between humour and horror, satire and sincerity in this unique short. The film doesn’t lecture – but it does hit a nerve, unsettling you with the brutal truth that lies beneath its clever premise: in today’s housing market, a ghost is less terrifying than a landlord with development rights.

Halfway Haunted is smart, funny without flippancy and politically sharp without feeling heavy-handed. In just over 15 minutes, Rudykoff delivers a biting critique of displacement and proves that the most haunting stories often come from the everyday.

Rachel Sinclair