Andy Coyle, the director best known for helming Netflix’s animated adaptation of Hilda, launched the indie anthology Don’t Walk Home Alone After Dark as an outlet for modern folk horror. His new animated short, Kali, arrived on the channel on 18 September 2026, serving as both a standalone fright and a proof of concept for the broader television adaptation currently in development with Mercury Filmworks and La Chouette Compagnie.
Four Years of Autumn Terrors
The project has kept to a deliberate, annual rhythm. Over the past four years, the channel has dropped roughly one horror short a year, tracking from early releases through to the tense cornfield encounter in The Devil’s Rock. Where earlier instalments leaned on illustrated, podcast-style narration, Kali marks a deliberate step into full cinematic animation.
Behind the scenes, the production relies on a tight-knit indie crew to bring the nightmare to life:
- Producer: Renee MacCarthy
- Storyboards: Anh Tu Cao
- Voice of Kali: Tanaeya Taylor
- Voice of The Voice: Natalie & Samuel Quinn
Coyle’s Indie Aesthetic
Visually, the film carries Coyle’s signature clean linework and expressive character framing, but it strips away the whimsical warmth of his previous television work.
Instead, Kali opens on a bleak coastal town swallowed by winter dusk, washing concrete pavements in cold purple shadows and dirty slush. Once the action slips beneath street level, the palette collapses entirely. The only light source becomes the harsh, flickering glare of a cracked mobile phone screen cutting through pitch-black subterranean framing.
The Missing Boy in the Drain
The story centres on seventeen-year-old Kali MacLaire, stranded outside a locked convenience store after dusk when her ride home fails to materialise. Left with no choice but to walk through a deserted underpass, she hears faint cries for help echoing out of an open municipal storm drain.
The voice seems to belong to Max Gray, a twelve-year-old boy whose missing poster Kali passed just minutes earlier. Armed only with her phone light, she steps into the culvert to help, only to discover that whatever is lurking in the dark knows precisely how to mimic human distress to lure prey inside.
Pure Creature Feature Dread
The short works because it weaponises mundane teenage vulnerability, dead phone batteries, empty roads, and dark public shortcuts, before pulling the trigger on body horror. Rather than drowning the audience in cheap jump scares, Coyle lets the acoustic terror of the storm drain do the heavy lifting before unleashing a sharp, brutal reminder of why the channel carries its name.
Looking to tempt fate again after that culvert encounter? Take a chance on the short film roulette and hit this teleport link to see where Geek Native drops you next.
