Best of Show: Inside "Trailers of Terror & Peepers," BloodBat's Grand-Prize Anthology

Most BloodBat teams spend 48 hours trying to finish one short. Glitzel Gonzalez and her Munchkin Movies crew made an anthology. "Trailers of Terror & Peepers" runs nearly eight minutes across a reel of fake horror-movie trailers and a standalone short, and it did enough, and did it well enough, to take the 2025 BloodBat Best of Show Award, the competition's top prize, at the Screaming Room Film Festival in Long Beach, California.

The scope did not go unnoticed. The film won praise from every corner of the jury, from the studio team at Buffalo 8 to Max Tzannes (director of Et Tu) to Carolyn Hennesy and the HorrorBuzz and MidSummer Scream crews.

The ambition was baked in from the start, and so was the trust. "I've worked with some of my team before, and I felt very confident in the writing skills of both Anthony and Nomar," Gonzalez says of co-writers Anthony Gonzalez and Nomar Villa. With the clock already against them, she proposed a low-risk way to generate a lot of material fast: "I suggested that we each write mini stories and see how much we could fit into five minutes." Then the concept found its shape. "After Anthony pitched the idea of adding a 'Nicole Kidman parody' (a riff on the now-ubiquitous movie-theater ad), we decided to turn them into trailers instead of short stories," she says, and the anthology's genre-hopping identity was born. The last piece fell into place when a familiar face signed on: "When Carolyn Hennesy offered her assistance to be our Nicole Kidman, we were ecstatic about exploring all the different genres."

The trade-off for that ambition was, inevitably, time. "Our biggest constraint was easily time," Gonzalez says. At nearly eight minutes, the film ran long by BloodBat standards, and rather than compress, the team made a bold call. "We decided that separating Peepers from the rest would give it the time that it deserved, without having to sacrifice any of our work. But that also meant we had to fit so many more shots into our schedule." The gamble paid off twice over. "Seeing it win alongside Trailers of Terror made it so worth it in the end," she says, "because our extra effort was not in vain."

If a project this size held together, it was because Gonzalez built it to. "Luckily, I took the time to assemble my team beforehand. I hired all of the roles in our credits and basically told everyone to prepare for anything, because it was going to be a hell of a weekend." They delivered. "Thankfully everyone held up their own positions and workload, allowing us to get in all of our shots." Her nod goes to the first-timers: "The unsung heroes are those who were completely new to Munchkin Movies and were so willing to hop right in and take on this challenge."

The weekend's true test arrived on location. "When we were filming Inhuman, our original set location was in an alleyway behind a hotel, about a block away from the convention center," Gonzalez recalls. First came the hecklers: "Some strangers saw we were filming and decided to be disruptive by calling to us and walking in the shots." Then came the cavalry. "A loud fire alarm started to go off in the car lot next to us, which led police to arrive and block off the street." The fix was drastic but decisive. "For safety and practical reasons, we decided we should move the set into the parking lot, which meant we had to reshoot a chunk of our film and start from the top." That improvised relocation is what made the cut. "The parking lot location is the footage in our final project."

The most fun, naturally, came from the most impossible setup: the scenes in "Peepers," staged almost entirely inside a car. "Trying to fit five people with a camera, sound, lighting, and an actor in the car was so challenging," she says. "The space was impractical, lighting was terrible, and we had to frequently move positions to get the angles. But in the end, it's all about problem solving, and that's what we live for."

The single biggest swing of the weekend was also its happiest accident. "Carolyn Hennesy volunteering to be in our film made our entire weekend," Gonzalez says. "It was so random, and we had to really shift our schedule around to fit her, but she was a definite highlight for all of us." No one minded the disruption: "We were willing to change our entire schedule if it meant she showed up in it."

A last-minute purchase punched well above its weight. "The day before the competition, I bought Rode Wireless Go lavaliers, and immediately we knew it was going to change the way we worked, in such a positive way," she says. Credit for wielding them goes to the sound department: "Our sound operator, Nicholas, knew how to work them and was in charge of boom and lavs the whole time."

Offered the classic what-if, Gonzalez didn't reach for a wish list. "Honestly, even if we had six more hours, I would not have done anything differently," she says. "I love that our work is a reflection of how much we were able to accomplish in such little time, and I'm proud of myself for being able to organize all of this in the first place."

What she hopes a second viewing reveals is everything the clock nearly hid. "I hope they really take the time to notice our diversity in shots and look out for the required dialogue as a part of the competition," she says. "When watching the final product altogether, consider how we did so much in less than two days. Listen to the sounds, the music, watch the details our actors added into their characters, and know that there were so many people behind the camera that helped me bring this to life."

Those people, and that platform, are what Gonzalez keeps returning to. An aspiring director who produces and funds her own films, she is, in her words, "a student looking for opportunity in every corner," grateful "to thank the staff again for giving me a platform to put my work on." She saved a first thank-you for closer to home: her dad, "for teaching me to push myself and try new things." You can follow Munchkin Movies, and whatever it attempts next, at @munch_movies on Instagram.

Full Credits

Producer, Director, Writer, Editor, SFX Artist: Glitzel Gonzalez

Co-Writers: Anthony Gonzalez, Nomar Villa

Cast: Victoria Arrizon, Riese Ili, Brandon Guevara

Special Guest: Carolyn Hennesy

Second AD: Nayeli Pereyra

Script Supervisor: Ella Katindig

Camera Operator: Nomar Villa

Co-Editor: Emily Dominguez

Sound Operator: Nicholas Fregoso

Gaffers: Louie Villalobos, Isabella Lopez

Production Company: Munchkin Movies (@munch_movies)