Ron Howard’s ‘The Rusted’ Is The Must See Spooky Movie Of The Halloween Season

With Halloween almost upon us, everyone is looking for scary movies to watch with their friends and family. One that may go overlooked in people’s spooky playlist this year is a new short, "The Rusted," starring “Hunger Games” actor Josh Hutcherson.

The film is a part of Canon and director Ron Howard’s “Project Imagination: The Trailer.” It is the direct result of a contest held by the camera company that invites filmmakers from any genre or experience level to create a movie trailer. More than 1,300 submissions were made and both Howard and Hutcherson watched them all before deciding on a winner. In the end, they decided on a submission called “Tainted Water” from Mark Mukherjee, a 19-year-old college student from Florida.

Mukherjee’s reward was to have a film professionally made inspired by his trailer. Howard and Canon handed the project over to Hutcherson and writer-director Kat Candler, who turned it into the roughly 20-minute “The Rusted.”

“It was very evocative, it could be a thriller, it could be horror, it could be drama, but whatever it was there was an element of kind of the unknown and the unknowable in it,” Howard told International Business Times about “Tainted Water” at the red carpet premiere of the short film. “There was just an element of mystery that seemed psychological and I think that’s one of the things that attracted Josh to it too. [‘The Rusted’] evolved in really creative ways but it definitely owes its existence to the ‘Tainted Water’ trailer.”

“The Rusted,” which can be viewed for free at Canon’s Project Imagination website as of Oct. 23, tells the story of a brother and sister, played by Hutcherson and his “Hunger Games” co-star Jena Malone. The psychological thriller follows them as they spend a night in their childhood home. Hutcherson’s character is bent on turning their mother’s old house into a recording studio and his sister is there to help, despite the emotional toll it takes on her to return to the house after many years. As the night goes on, strange occurrences inside bring the true horror of their story to the forefront -- the unresolved issues they each carry from childhood.

Will you be checking out this eerie tale before Halloween season is over? Comment below or tweet your thoughts on “The Rusted” to @TylerMcCarthy.