Release Year: 2025

Streaming Service: AMC Plus

Audio Description Provided By: the Social Audio Description Collective

What Is it?: A short film festival from earlier this year that was disability minded and accessibility forward features a bunch of different shorts all in the horror genre.

What Works: This actually has audio description on AMC Plus, one of the very limited options the service has. if you are truly interested in this, you can always run a free trial. if you find other things while you’re there, good for you. The lack of audio description actually on these streaming services by AMC Networks makes Shudder an odd sponsor for the festival, but here we are. The whole thing is presented back to back, with no introduction or conclusion, and each short has its own set of credits. Each one had audio description produced by the Social Audio Description Collective, and due to the high number of shorts, there were a bunch of writers, narrators, and quality control specialists involved. Too many to list, but all did remarkable work.

As I mentioned in my video review, if I can review it on Rotten tomatoes, it would just be a blanket “fresh”. Obviously, if I was forced to break it down short by short, I can’t honestly say I loved all of them. It started out with a focus on vaginas, and for the first few I actually wondered if that was the theme. Like everyone agreed to make a short about the same thing.

Not the case. While I’m not one to necessarily discourage filmmakers, I will say Access Horror starts with one of the weaker shorts, and some of the better ones are later. So if you aren’t connecting at the start, neither was I. Then we got a clever short that almost was an audio description narrator, but then i realized she is just reading for an audio book, so very adjacent.But that actress gave my favorite performance. I wanted to see more of her, and spend more time with that character. My favorite short, while flawed, was the Slashr (sic) short that took a spin on Grindr. That could have been a longer feature, and played a bit more with the sensors that announced when doors opened.

But in every one, the audio description is fantastic.even that first one starts out just on fire with descriptions of the characters being cisgender. So few films and series ever find the time to mention things like that, so for it to be prioritized right out of the gate was pretty amazing.

Don’t expect over the top gore and creature effects. these are low budget shorts that use what they can to advance their stories. It is a super interesting idea, and if shudder keeps paying for AD, and the SADC keeps doing the AD, this could become like a new VHS style anthology every Spooky Season.

The Audio description: I already mentioned I loved it. the great thing is that because it is all one company, the comparisons are even and not driven by who got which AD provider. They all seem to play by the same rule book and standards, which means every short has terrific audio description. I did recognize some names in each field, writing, quality check, and narration, but not all. Quality Check makes such a huge difference, and I’m glad they got credited. Not only does it get names out there, but it reminds companies that this is a vital part of the process not to be shorted.

Why You Might Like it: You are a horror junkie, and aside from a few of the Easter Seals shorts, this genre is largely not described otherwise, especially in short form.

Why you Might Not Like It: I know some people just don’t like shorts. that is fair. Also, this being pushed together into one collection doesn’t allow you to pick and choose which ones you want to see.

Final thoughts: Access Horror 2025 puts audio description front and center where it belongs, and does it shockingly on AMC Plus and Shudder. Representation matters, even in spooky season.

Fresh. No Number Score.