Jason Sondhi

Stranger Things emerged with little fanfare to become the breakout series of the Summer TV season. A nostalgia-infused horror series filled with homages to 80’s Spielberg and John Carpenter flicks, it’s been all the rage at SotW’s virtual watercooler on Slack, and on the internet at large. As always is the case with these happy surprises, the shows creators, the Duffer Brothers, seemingly burst out of nowhere to become the toast of Hollywood. But, of course, no creators this talented come out of nowhere; they have to toil and learn their craft like any of the rest of us. So in proving that point, today’s short is Eater, an early college short from the director duo, made during their time at California’s Dodge College. 

Even this early example betrays the Duffer Brothers love of genre filmmaking. An atmospheric thriller with just the right bit of corniness, the film is taut, spooky, and has just a touch of the supernatural. Frankly it’s a lot of fun and a worthy feature on the site, if without the Stranger Things tie-in. 

The sci-fi website i09 covers a lot of shorts we feature here on SotW (and we’re thankful!), but credit is due this time around, as they were the first to spot Eater, an obscure 6 year-old upload to the Dodge College Vimeo account. Nice work! If you want to learn even more about the brothers’ early work, including a pair of shorts they wrote but did not direct, /Film put out a nice piece yesterday.