At just over three minutes, including credits, Daphne has very little time to establish itself. Rather than rushing toward a scare, writer-director Ryan McGee, better known online as Caulkdraggin, spends almost all of that runtime creating a feeling that something is fundamentally wrong.
The film opens through the eyes of Joshua as he speaks with Professor Caulkdraggin, who describes Daphne in glowing terms. She's special. She's obedient. She's "the one." Before those statements can be fully unpacked, Daphne herself arrives, interrupting the conversation and shifting the focus entirely onto the mysterious event coming later tonight. What follows is essentially a series of conversations, but they're conversations loaded with unease.
Daphne walks through a park chatting excitedly about what's coming. She compares it to waiting for Christmas morning as a child, describing the anticipation of an event she has dreamed about for so long that it almost felt impossible it would ever arrive. On paper, those words are innocent enough. In practice, they become unsettling because of Daphne herself.
Played by Daphne Root, the character exists in an uncanny space where every smile, pause, and line delivery feels just slightly off-center. Her enthusiasm never reads as normal excitement. Instead, it feels rehearsed, programmed, or perhaps conditioned. The performance creates a constant tension between innocence and dread. You never quite know whether Daphne understands what's about to happen or whether she's walking willingly toward something terrible. That uncertainty becomes the film's greatest strength.
McGee's stated goal has been to make familiar places and ordinary interactions feel believable before introducing horror. Daphne succeeds by making those familiar moments feel safe on the surface while quietly poisoning them underneath. A conversation between friends, a walk through a public park, an awkward exchange about a paper cut. None of these moments should be threatening, yet they all carry an almost alien quality.
The found footage perspective contributes heavily to that atmosphere. Joshua's camera never feels cinematic. It feels intrusive, accidental, and increasingly uncomfortable. The audience is placed in the position of witnessing events without fully understanding them, which mirrors Joshua's experience throughout the short. Thankfully, the film eventually pays off the tension it's building.
Without venturing into spoiler territory, the final act becomes exactly what the first two-thirds promise: brutal, chaotic, and strange. The practical and digital effects work surprisingly well given the scale of the production, and while the short feels more like a proof of concept than a complete narrative, it leaves enough of an impression to make you curious about where McGee could take these ideas in a larger project.
The film also feels like a progression for the filmmaker. McGee built an audience through viral found-footage horror and creature-centric shorts, often blending live-action filmmaking with digital techniques. Discussions around AI-assisted filmmaking remain divisive, and some viewers will undoubtedly question its use here. But if AI tools were involved in Daphne, they are functioning in service of an actual filmmaking vision rather than replacing one. The result feels considerably more cohesive and purposeful than much of the AI-assisted horror currently flooding social media. That said, the short is not without flaws.
Professor Caulkdraggin's intentionally ridiculous name occasionally undercuts the film's otherwise effective atmosphere. The story flirts with genuinely sinister territory, and there are moments where a more serious presentation might have heightened the tension even further. There is also a small continuity issue in the repeated emphasis on "tonight" as a looming event, only for portions of the climax to appear noticeably sunlit. Still, these are relatively minor complaints in a film whose greatest accomplishment is the mood it creates.
For most of its runtime, Daphne operates like a warning sign you cannot quite read. Everyone around the title character insists she is ready. Everyone seems to know more than you do. Every conversation raises new questions without answering the previous ones. By the time the truth arrives, the film has already succeeded in making you uncomfortable.
Daphne may only last three minutes, but it demonstrates a clear understanding of how to weaponize anticipation. More importantly, it shows Ryan McGee continuing to evolve beyond viral horror clips and into short-form storytelling with genuine atmosphere.
Jessie Hobson