Scotty’s Horror Short Showcase: ‘The Latest Download’

Written by Scott Edwards 

It seems like whatever we use these days comes with some sort of download that for the most part, only takes a couple seconds out of our days to get. While we do not think twice about this, since it seems to be running rampant with all of our devices, we never really take the time to sit and read all that will be coming with it. For those people who have the time to read the hundred pages of the old iTunes Terms and Services, I applaud you, most of us don’t have the time and just hit Accept. As the update files continue to grow, we tend to have less time to read them and whatever they say will go through our systems, whether we like it or not.
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A woman sits on her couch, reading a book with nothing happening in her house, other than her router starting to collect a new download. As the lights on the router start to flicker, indicating that it is starting to bring in a large file, the lights in the house start to flicker a little bit. Noticing this for a brief second, the woman looks up from her book, but at it ends as quickly as it started, so she pays it no mind. Going back to her book, the woman then hears something fall in the other room and goes to investigate. 

Seeing that a stick has fallen, she picks it back up and puts it in its place and heads back into the other room, when she hears something that she cannot explain. Seeing nothing, she sits back down on the couch and continues reading her book when she sees that a file has downloaded onto her phone. Hitting the play option, she watches as the device starts to load and is shocked when seeing the results. Seeing herself in her house at that moment, the woman tries to find out where the image is being filmed from, but that might be the last thing she is ever able to do.

This is a quick little horror short that delivers on suspense in a big way. With little signs that there is something going wrong in the house, the woman is not really afraid to start with, but that changes when she sees that she might be the subject of the latest download that has just taken place. The flickering lights on the router is really the most real thing in this short, as I know we have all taken a moment to watch this when we are waiting for something to download, and I will never look at it the same way again. With a comfortable couch, a book, a falling stick, an unexplainable sound, a dripping faucet, a strange download and a stranger in the house that cannot be explained, this short will make you think twice about what you are about to mindlessly download into your devices, because if you don’t know the fine print, you may find that the writing is on the wall. Stay Scared.

Watch ‘The Latest Download’ on Amazon Prime Video.

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