Shazam! Director Debuts New Horror Short Online

Shazam! director David F. Sandberg is known for his roots in horror. The filmmaker has released several short horror genre films on YouTube, making them in his spare time with his wife, and inspiring others to do the same. Now, he has uploaded another film which is sure to give viewers some chills. It is called Shadowed and follows his wife as a character awake in the dark of night, finding objects and creatures which are haunting her through shadows. Having proved that she can physically interact with these ghoulish shadow things, her life seems to be in terrifying danger.

Sandberg recently joined ComicBook.com for a Quarantine Watch Party of Shazam!, opening up about how he managed to inject a horror sequence into the DC Comics movie in the form of its famous boardroom scene. “Some people in the studio were sort of wary about it while others were like, ‘Yeah, go for it. Do the horror!’” Sandberg explained in an interview ahead of the Quarantine Watch Party. “This is a New Line movie and they’re used to horror, so that wasn’t really a problem. It was just like, yeah, making sure that you don’t go too far. But they were very open to have a little bit of that, which I love it. It just makes the movie feel more complete when you have real stakes.”

He also shared behind-the-scenes videos of how the boardroom sequence was brought to life and what the film’s Seven Deadly Sins looked like on set.

In the short film above, Sandberg does take with him a bit of the VFX knowledge he may have learned while working on Shazam!. “A lot of it is just working with some visual effects and stuff like that and trying to avoid it as much as possible, because it’s not a lot of fun,” Sandberg said. “The result is cool, but it’s just helpful to work with and it’s just… It’s just sort of working at a different scale was the big difference, because otherwise the storytelling is the same and working with actors is pretty much the same. It’s just bigger and longer and harder.”

For now, Sandberg is expecting to get to work on Shazam! 2 later this year. The film is slated to be released on April 1, 2022. In the mean time, his Youtube channel is loaded with great content for fans of his work or those looking for a bit of knowledge and perspective with filmmaking.