A short film called The Nurse has won The Conjuring universe short film contest. Said contest was announced last month by Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg, and it tasked aspiring filmmakers to craft a short in the style of James Wan’s booming horror franchise. The rules of the contest were pretty simple, with the catch being the deadline for submitted entries was less than a month away. The shorts had to be no longer than 2 minutes in duration, and feel like they could exist within the established Conjuring world.
The prize for the contest is a really cool one, as far as contests like these generally go. The maker of the winning short is set to receive a personal meeting with both a New Line executive and Sandberg himself, in Hollywood, all travel expenses paid of course. While one imagines this probably wouldn’t result in a booming film career right away, Sandberg himself made it to Hollywood based on the success of his horror short Lights Out, so it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the winner could use this opportunity to try and break into the industry.
The U.S.-based winner of The Conjuring short film contest has now been selected: a spooky short titled The Nurse. Separate winners will soon be selected from other markets like the U.K and Mexico. Directed by filmmaker Julian Terry, The Nurse focuses on a little girl who is currently unable to see due to bandages being wrapped around her face. As one might imagine, this makes it very hard for her to avoid encountering the titular monster. Check the full short out above.


Despite being shot in less than 4 days, The Nurse short looks and sounds extremely professional, with great make-up jobs on both the scared little girl and the creepy title character. It also does very much feel like it belongs in The Conjuring world, alongside The Nun and Annabelle.
With Annabelle: Creation currently #1 at the box office and making serious bank – with good critical reviews to boot – one wonders how many more years of genre dominance The Conjuring universe has ahead of it. Perhaps New Line will elect to hold more of these short film contests in the future, or even expand The Nurse idea itself into a feature film. Stranger things have happened in Hollywood.

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