By Brent McKnight | 8 years ago

Between The Avengers—one of the biggest movies in history—and Cabin in the Woods—one of the most original horror films in years—Joss Whedon is having a pretty good 2012 by most standards. At this point he can do whatever the hell he wants. While that surely means more big, awesome movies in the future, right now it means he’s going to star in Scary Smash, a partially-animated short film based on the idea of Brett Baligad, a five-year-old child. That somehow seems like an obvious choice for Whedon.

Scary Smash starts out with the death of a milkman (Dave Foley) at the hands of a giant, red, one-eyed monster. Gerald (Whedon) must lead his highly-trained S.Q.U.A.T. Team, including Kate Micuci (Raising Hope), into an epic seven day battle against the creature.

The story is told with the intuitive narrative of a child (obviously). It’s simple, but effective, and has all the appropriate components. You have an inciting incident, build up, climactic action, and an ultimate resolution, all in around four minutes.

Produced by Felicia Day (The Guild), and directed by Daniel Strange, Scary Smash is the first episode in the web series “Written by a Kid.” This is exactly what it sounds like, producers turn a child’s idea into a short film. It’s a lot of fun, and if this initial installment is any indication, there will hopefully be more chapters in this series.

Here is a behind-the-scenes video of Strange talking about how they landed such a big name cast for such a small time project.