Forget that friendly sandman your mum used to tell you about at bed time, sprinkling your sleeping eyes with magical sand to bring you sweet dreams. British director Paul Berry’s sinister interpretation of the fairytale is much less comforting.

When Shorts Towers started looking at our favourite short films of all time, Online Producer Siobhan’s hand shot straight into the air. The 1991 animation tells the chilling (but kind of funny) tale of a little boy sent to his room with only a candle to light the way. Kept awake by noises and shadows, he finally starts to drift off – with no help from the sandman.

Often compared to A Nightmare Before Christmas, the feature length film Paul Berry went on to work on a year later, the short was a self funded project done in the film makers’ spare time on a minimum budget – the result of three years’ work. 

Berry had started his career aged 23, as an animator on The Wind in the Willows TV series, before going on to direct Oscar nominated The Sandman, his first and only film. He went on to animate on A Nightmare Before Christmas, and then worked with Tim Burton again as animation supervisor on James and the Giant Peach. 

If you have trouble sleeping, we don’t recommend watching this…