Horror Short Review: Uncanny Valley 2 (2026)

The uncanny valley look is blowing up online and with that statement, we have a reason for vapid and uninteresting ‘content creators’ to jump on a trend. This is what drives Mackenzie (Ella Waitz) to try out her own look for her followers.

Written, directed, and edited by Alex Magaña, this ACMofficial short can be best summed up as sanitised horror with an interesting idea. Using the uncanny valley as a source for scares is good, but actually scaring someone is a challenge that ACMofficial rarely manages to achieve, and this idea is not going to change that.

That being said, Ella Waitz is good and throws her all into the role, with a smile that might make a person feel a bit creeped out. A feeling of unease or revulsion? The kind that a person feels when looking upon humanoid robots or AI that look almost real? No, that is where the short really fails. It simply doesn’t capture the uncanny valley feeling.