Matt Blake

It’s Christmas Eve in Pleasantview, and something is deeply wrong in the Goth mansion. Mortimer Goth, once the town’s respected intellectual, is seen dressed in a tattered Santa suit, talking to shadows, and leaving presents that explode or bleed. Ever since Bella vanished without a trace, Mortimer’s mind has deteriorated. This Christmas, he decides to "give back" to the neighborhood — one corpse at a time. Armed with a candy cane axe and an endless supply of fire hazards, Mortimer begins a murderous rampage across Pleasantview, targeting everyone from the Calientes to the Brokes. By sunrise, the snow is red.

Sanctuary Hills is a 24-minute animated machinima drama created using Fallout 4 and Blender. Set during the final hours of the Sino-American War, the film follows the Washingtons, the only Black family in a gated community, who are denied access to the nuclear vault they paid for due to government-enforced racial discrimination. As the bombs fall, they are left to die—only to survive through a horrific mutation caused by radiation. Transformed and enraged, the Washingtons return to claim vengeance on the community that betrayed them.

A newcomer, Simintha Cringe, arrives in Pleasantview, hopeful for a fresh start. But odd occurrences soon disrupt the calm: neighbors act suspiciously, shadows move where they shouldn’t, and the line between reality and nightmare blurs. The tension builds until the truth about Pleasantview’s dark underbelly is revealed — and it’s far worse than expected.

O, a creator who has become lost within his own creation. As Death arrives at 3:33 am—the witching hour—to claim him, O is forced to confront the flaws in his work and his own mistakes. Through a series of flashbacks, the film reveals O's influence on the world he built, using various characters from different eras to maintain his followers' worship. The narrative explores themes of creation, legacy, and the consequences of a creator’s flawed intervention in their own work, ultimately suggesting that his removal is the only way for the game (a metaphor for life) to be truly fixed.