Peekers (2008) User Reviews

I see you!

[Alan-42 · 8/10 · 5 December 2008]

They're living right next door! Across the street! Now they're in your home! I saw this dark little beauty this past September at the 2008 Dark Carnival Film Festival in Bloomington, Ill. It scared the living daylights out of me! No blood. No gore. Just good old fashioned 'creeps' by taking the 'average' everyday suburban neighborhood and turning it into a children's game-gone-nightmare. And the old man's wife at the top of the stairs?? Yikes! Chilling! Now I know why I don't deal with my own neighbors! Excellent short film from a very clever director. I can't wait to see what he creates next! This little horror flick is must see- look for it!

Creepy, a short you should play.

[Aaron1375 · 8/10 · 16 June 2010]

I read another person's review on this film and he mentioned that it had a relatively low budget, but I do not think it shows. It looks like a film that could be showed at the theater. To bad they do not make full length horror movies like this as this is another case of a short film I would like to see developed more. The actors did a good job and so to did the writer or writers and the whole film crew. There was another short film I saw called "There Are Monsters" that was like this in that it made me really want to see more, and they both were kind of creepy. Actually very creepy. It starts off rather like some sort of light comedy or something as a person is making his breakfast. They get done and it is revealed that it is a man. The music is still light as he switches on the television and proceeds to watch the news. Well one of his neighbors proceeds to knock on the door and ask a favor. He wishes his neighbor to come over to his house and look at something that is off. The guy is perturbed, but agrees to it and as he walks over to his neighbors house the music takes on a darker tone though still light in a way as well, kind of a subtle change that I rather liked. Well from then on the film gets really creepy and the last scene is just great. All in all a nice short film where its main fault is that I want to see more!

Okay story and ideas, even if the execution could have been better

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 14 June 2017]

"Peekers" is an American English-language short film from 2008, so this one will have its 10th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Mark Steensland and this is one of his most known works and also same applies to the two writers and the cast, even if for the latter it doesn't mean much because the actors are hardly professional actors looking at their bodies of work. The two who play the old couple could even be husband and wife in real life looking at their names. The story here is fairly effective for an 8-minute movie. A man just wants to eat breakfast, but is called by a neighbor to his house where strange happenings occur apparently. The wife stands upstairs and talks weird stuff while she should be somewhere entirely else. Creeped out by the same thing happening to the old man too, our hero leaves for his own house again, but he took something with him. So yeah, this honestly looked like a pretty low budget production and I am not sure if I see any talent in here in terms of acting or directing, but the story makes it worth watching and lets me ignore (at least to some extent) the fact that the production values and overall outcome look pretty cheap and amateurish. I still give it a thumbs-up, Worth seeing for spooky film lovers.

Extremely freaky!

[emobadger · 9/10 · 18 May 2008]

I saw this short at Dead by Dawn 2008 Edinburgh's horror film fest, I'm surprised by the votes it currently has here on IMDb. There was an audience vote at DBD to choose the best short horror of the festival, this came third. Personally I voted it to win. It's very low budget yes, but it affected my psyche a lot more than many of the ridiculously high budgeted shorts on display which I'll never think about again. This short really freaked me out! The idea is really simple but effective. Reminded me of some nightmares i've had. The actors involved did a good job too in realising this story, especially that guys wife at the top of the stairs!! eek! Very Twilight Zoneseque which can only be a good thing.

I'd like to say bravo!

Play With Me!

[wirrrn · 10/10 · 7 July 2008]

Just saw this excellent short horror film PEEKERS as part of the NIGHT OF HORROR at the 2008 Revelation film festival in Perth, West Australia.

Of the eight film shown, this one was one of the three ( along with others KIRKSDALE and THE ANCIENT RITE OF COREY MCGILLIS) that managed to terrify me- and I see a *lot* of Horror films. Bonus points to Mr. Steensland was for making PEEKERS such an awesome, unsettling, truly creepy film a] in such a short running time and b] without shedding one drop of blood! I found myself genuinely frightened by the concept, especially by the line "She wasn't threatening, but I felt threatened" and the shot of the newsreader 'peeking', suggesting it's happening everywhere.

give it a peek!

Horrible. Ridiculous. And pointless.

[banana_who · 1/10 · 25 May 2009]

Wow. I clicked on a banner that sent me to the official website of Peekers. With all of those fancy looking awards on the side of the page, I thought it might be interesting, or at the very least a fun diversion for a few moments. But no. The "Peekers" are some sort of ghoul (what it is is never explained) that possesses and/or assumes the shape of people and makes them hide behind corners "peeking" at you. You end the short as clueless as you were from the beginning. Sadly there is nothing going on in Peekers that would make me able to recommend it to anyone. It's only a couple of minutes long...I guess that's a good thing.

It creeped the living daylights out of me.

[lcruell · 10/10 · 13 October 2008]

I saw "Peekers" at this year's Shriekfest out in LA where I was also a triple finalist in the screenplay categories, and I have to say it was one of my favorite shorts of the whole festival. It was short, simple, with no expensive special effects or fancy locations and yet it creeped the living daylights out of me. Something about that shot of "the Peekers" with the oddness of splitting the face in half, the weird feel, the inexplicableness of it, and that first actress I mean it just nailed it casting-wise with her. It was awesome. It reminded me a lot of the feel you get after reading a really good Stephen King short story.

Seriously Freaky

[nbphotodesign · 10/10 · 23 March 2021]

Absolutely scared me to death. Very well put together and a year later I was still getting flashes of the scene at the top of the stairs. Would love to see a full length version.