The 3:07 AM Project is a good example of how hard it is to make an extremely short horror film anything more than a single jump scare.

As part of a promotion for The Conjuring, the movie teamed up with Vice to commission four minute-and-change horror shorts from four different directors centered around the theme of 3:07 AM. They then put those four films into one anthology video.

Even though the four films are relatively unique from each other, the collection doesn't hold up extremely well.

The first film, "This One, for the Lady", was directed by Nacho Vigalondo (Colossal, Timecrimes) played on the idea of our dreams becoming reality, turning them to nightmares. In his dream, the man whose eyes we see through does some magic and presents his girlfriend a box filled with her teeth. We cut back to the real world, and his girlfriend sits up in bed and screams, revealing blood dripping from her toothless maw.

This one would have maintained a creepier atmosphere had they avoided the scream and had her sit up, the blood begin to drip, and have her fall back down, gurgling. As it stands: 2/5

"The Seance" by Max Landis (Me Him Her) is a generic found footage film of a seance gone wrong for the folks that don't seem to know what's going on. The camera timer starts somewhere in the 3:05 minute, and when it touches 3:07, the people all around them go from normal to insane, chasing them around until they drop the camera. 1/5

"Box" by Ti West (The Innkeepers, The House of the Devil) is a single-shot, slow-burn of a jump scare. A contortionist climbs out of a box, crawls toward the camera, and a moment after she's out of the frame, she jumps back in and screams. The whole things was a cheap jump scare anyone with a FaceBook account in October can see coming.

The worst part about "Box" is that it actually could have some potential. Have the lady crawl out of the frame and just have the sound of her dragging herself across the ground slowly fade out as she crawls away. Maybe have her grab the camera, slowly rotating it around and showing a terrified man in the corner. It should have just been something other than the single most predictable and cheap way to get a reaction out of the viewer. As it stands: 1/5

"One Last Dive" by Jason Eisener is worth the moments of your time to watch. Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun) gives us a fun piece of short horror that plays off a human fear and mixes it with something deeply disturbing.

A diver takes his last dive investigating a crime scene or something similar, his flashlight barely providing enough light to see in front of him. The darkness and the water all around him are spooky in and of themselves, playing off of humanity's natural fear of drowning. Then we see a stroller chained to cinder blocks, and before your heart even has time to fully wrench, we see something else. A woman holding a baby, waterlogged and obviously dead, jumps out from the darkness, scaring everyone including the diver. He rushes to get away, to get back to the surface. As the air bubbles from the flailing fade away, we all realize the diver's fate. The corpse didn't just jump out of nowhere. She latched a chain onto the diver's ankle. 3.5/5

While the average score of the four films comes out to just about 2/5, the whole collection is soured by two bad shorts. While the idea is interesting, giving the directors three minutes a piece may have resulted in something a bit more creative. Either way, see if you can find "One Last Dive" separated from the pack and enjoy.

The 3:07 AM Project is a good example of how hard it is to make an extremely short horror film anything more than a single jump scare.

As part of a promotion for The Conjuring, the movie teamed up with Vice to commission four minute-and-change horror shorts from four different directors centered around the theme of 3:07 AM. They then put those four films into one anthology video.

Even though the four films are relatively unique from each other, the collection doesn't hold up extremely well.

The first film, "This One, for the Lady", was directed by Nacho Vigalondo (Colossal, Timecrimes) played on the idea of our dreams becoming reality, turning them to nightmares. In his dream, the man whose eyes we see through does some magic and presents his girlfriend a box filled with her teeth. We cut back to the real world, and his girlfriend sits up in bed and screams, revealing blood dripping from her toothless maw.

This one would have maintained a creepier atmosphere had they avoided the scream and had her sit up, the blood begin to drip, and have her fall back down, gurgling. As it stands: 2/5

"The Seance" by Max Landis (Me Him Her) is a generic found footage film of a seance gone wrong for the folks that don't seem to know what's going on. The camera timer starts somewhere in the 3:05 minute, and when it touches 3:07, the people all around them go from normal to insane, chasing them around until they drop the camera. 1/5

"Box" by Ti West (The Innkeepers, The House of the Devil) is a single-shot, slow-burn of a jump scare. A contortionist climbs out of a box, crawls toward the camera, and a moment after she's out of the frame, she jumps back in and screams. The whole things was a cheap jump scare anyone with a FaceBook account in October can see coming.

The worst part about "Box" is that it actually could have some potential. Have the lady crawl out of the frame and just have the sound of her dragging herself across the ground slowly fade out as she crawls away. Maybe have her grab the camera, slowly rotating it around and showing a terrified man in the corner. It should have just been something other than the single most predictable and cheap way to get a reaction out of the viewer. As it stands: 1/5

"One Last Dive" by Jason Eisener is worth the moments of your time to watch. Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun) gives us a fun piece of short horror that plays off a human fear and mixes it with something deeply disturbing.

A diver takes his last dive investigating a crime scene or something similar, his flashlight barely providing enough light to see in front of him. The darkness and the water all around him are spooky in and of themselves, playing off of humanity's natural fear of drowning. Then we see a stroller chained to cinder blocks, and before your heart even has time to fully wrench, we see something else. A woman holding a baby, waterlogged and obviously dead, jumps out from the darkness, scaring everyone including the diver. He rushes to get away, to get back to the surface. As the air bubbles from the flailing fade away, we all realize the diver's fate. The corpse didn't just jump out of nowhere. She latched a chain onto the diver's ankle. 3.5/5

While the average score of the four films comes out to just about 2/5, the whole collection is soured by two bad shorts. While the idea is interesting, giving the directors three minutes a piece may have resulted in something a bit more creative. Either way, see if you can find "One Last Dive" separated from the pack and enjoy.