Grief isn’t always a ghost story, but ‘Bestias’ makes a case for why it should be. In V.R. Rao’s eerie, high-end horror short, trauma isn’t an abstract feeling – it breathes down your neck in the dark. With chilling precision, Rao drags us into the spiraling mind of Jess (La Rivers), a widowed mother stumbling through a camping trip with her teenage son Jake (Ta’J). It’s not the wilderness she fears. It’s what follows her there.
The woods become a stage for Jess’s haunted psyche. There’s something out there. It watches. It moves. It remembers. Her late husband Jeff (Steven Richardson) appears in spectral fragments – more memory than man – and the lines between reality and mental collapse blur. What’s chasing her is not real, and that makes it worse.
Jadzia Erskine’s cinematography does heavy lifting here. The production is sleek, even cinematic, but never loses the raw nerve of short-form horror. There are jump scares, but ‘Bestias’ earns them. Rao isn’t clearly isn’t interested in cheap thrills. This is psychological dread masquerading as a demonic monster movie. The creature in the woods is a walking, snarling manifestation of Jess’s trauma – unresolved, unspoken, and very much alive.
La Rivers carries the film with a breathless, unhinged vulnerability. Her performance is soaked in fear, but more than that – exhaustion. She’s worn down, eroded by grief. It’s painful to watch. That’s the point. Ta’J and Steven Richardson bring subtlety and spectral weight to their supporting roles. ‘Bestias’ is a film about the sudden ambush of trauma. One moment you’re camping with your son, the next you’re running from your own mind. It’s chilling. Unflinching. Highly recommended.
