**Editor’s Note: 5 Awesome LGBTQ Horror Short Films for Pride Month is a continuation of iHorror’s Horror Pride Month Celebrating the LGBTQ community and their contributions to the genre.

I love a good short horror film. There’s just something astonishing about the amount of tension one can build in such a short amount of time.

In the last several years we’ve seen a whole host of short films that we so good they were developed into features, but who can ever forget the sudden fear of Lights Out, for instance, in its short form? I, personally, had the time of my life introducing friends to the film just so I could see them freak out.

With that in mind, I decided that our latest entry into Horror Pride Month should put some of those amazing short films in the spotlight. The films you’ll read about below all feature queer characters and many were made by queer filmmakers.

Pyotr495

Directed and written by Black Mawson, Pyotr495 stunned audiences on the festival circuit for over a year with its brutal storytelling and unexpected twists and turns.

Set in the all too real setting of modern-day Russia and its intolerant laws against the LGBTQ community, Mawson highlights one of the terrible side effects of this prohibitive environment. It seems that following the signing of these laws, small groups of anti-gay nationalists would lure gay men and women to their homes in order to beat and humiliate them, videotaping their exploits and uploading them to the internet.

Pyotr495 takes viewers inside just this kind of situation, but this group had no idea who or what they had brought into their home until it was too late.

It won numerous awards all over the world.

Check out the short below, which was featured on the Short of the Week YouTube Channel last October.

Daisy

Directed by Camille Dunn for Crypt TV, Daisy is the story of a young lesbian couple of who have recently moved into their first home together.

Of course, this is a horror film, so one can anticipate pretty quickly why they got such a good deal on the home. It seems that a family of extreme religious conservatives lived there before…and they might never have left.

Daisy is a taut little ghost story that is well worth a watch.

Tonight It’s You

Dominic Haxton created one of the most terrifying and beautiful short films I’ve ever seen when he brought Tonight It’s You to life.

The film is a sequel of sorts to Haxton’s previous Tonight It’s Me but he went in antirely different direction than that first film.

CJ sets out for a hook-up late one night but soon finds himself in the middle of situation he never could have imagined. This is a tale of possession, religious fanaticism, and so much more.

Check out the film featured on the ASPD Films YouTube Channel.

Final Girls

What if the final girls in a horror film were a lesbian couple? If there could be only one survivor, how would you decide that?

Those are the questions Michelle Hanson asks in her short film, Final Girls, a hilarious horror-comedy short that grew out of a sketch she wrote for her theater troupe in Ohio.

in its own way, Final Girls approaches the questions that I’ve based our Horror Pride Month series on. If we want to be in the genre, and we want to be equal, shouldn’t we get used to the fact that we’re going to be both victims and villains from time to time?

Check out Final Girls from Fearopoly below!

The Quiet Room

Written and directed by Sam Wineman, The Quiet Room is an intense look at mental illness and its effects.

A gay man named Michael (Jamal Douglas) attempts suicide and wakes to find himself in a mental hospital. That’s only the beginning of his problems however, as he soon learns that an evil spirit by the name of Hattie haunts the quiet room of this particular hospital and she has a acquired a taste for hopeless men who attempt to take their own lives.

The film is gorgeously shot and features a stellar cast, including Lisa Wilcox (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 & 5) as a nurse in the hospital who makes a connection with Michael and helps him begin the healing process.

The film also boasts none other than “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Alaska Thunderfuck in the role of Hattie. Alaska is simply amazing as the spirit who isolates and slowly drains the will to live from her chosen victims.

The film, which only premiered this year is at the beginning of its festival run and therefore cannot be included here, but you can check out the trailer below and keep your eyes peeled for it to play at a festival near you!