Fan films almost as good as the real thing!

Batman vs. Terminators
The fan film Batman vs. The Terminator depicts a world ravaged by SkyNet, just like the only two Terminator movies anyone acknowledges. Of course, the crucial difference here is Bruce Wayne is part of the resistance. Though it's nice to have a superhero on call, the implications are bittersweet; humanity does have a symbol to rally around, but this also means that the Dark Knight was around for the fall of man. SkyNet took over the world on Batman's watch. Animator Mitchell Hammond embedded tons of personality and detail in every frame of this short, from the strand of hair in a soldier's face to grizzled gray beard of a world-weary warrior. 

Punisher: Dirty Laundry
This is almost cheating. Punisher: Dirty Laundry was produced by a team of professionals, and stars Tom Jane -- the guy who already starred as Frank Castle in a theatrically released movie called The Punisher. Even with that in mind, it's still too good to ignore. As part of Adi Shankar's "bootleg universe," Dirty Laundry features a more brutal Punisher than its predecessor. The short isn't perfect -- there's some palpable racial undertones, including some charged language that seems to have no purpose -- but overall the gritty, street-level tone seems like the perfect fit for a dark TV series. Imagine turning on Netflix and getting something like this!

Dante's Inferno video game fan film 
Remember Dante's Inferno? I'm talking about the EA game from 2010, the one that was basically God of War but in the Hot Topic version of hell. It wasn't especially good or especially bad, but it certainly was forgettable. Leave it to the internet to take something mediocre and make it incredible. The whole thing is almost exclusively the work of one guy. Granted, Tal Peleg is an animator for Naughty Dog who has worked on AAA games like The Last of Us and Uncharted 4, but it's the dedication that makes this work admirable. Dante's Redemption took two years of working in his spare time and calling in favors to realize. The effort was absolutely worth it. Peleg managed to make Dante look way more awesome than he ever did in the official game, especially the early (and totally real) cutscene where some rando saunters up and leisurely shanks the hero in the back. 

Five Nights at Freddy's
There's no stopping it: There will be more Five Nights At Freddy's. The YouTube smash hit/nightmare factory is not only getting more sequels, but also a Hollywood movie adaptation. Of course, by the time the movie finally comes out, the internet's most hysteria-prone Swedish supermodels will already have moved onto the newest viral senstation. But for now, at least we have this animated short from Deviant Pictures.It's strange to see something of this quality and fidelity that features FNaF. Up to this point, the rinky-dink production values have been part of the series' charm, adding to the creepy run-down childhood thematics. "Death Scene Springtrap - 2 Evil Eyes" plays out like an E3 trailer, or even an opening cinematic for a $60 game. The actual in-game Five Nights at Freddy's doesn't look anywhere near as good as this.

Live-action Spawn
If you're young enough to be really into Five Nights at Freddy's, you probably don't remember the Spawn live-action movie from the 90s. Just trust your elders when they say that the special effects have aged poorly, to say the least. At this point just about anything would look better than Satan's modded PSP background, but it's still impressive that the handful of folks behind "Spawn: The Recall" handily beat out a Hollywood production team from any decade. Beyond the special effects, there's a surreal, dreamlike quality here that the feature film never managed to capture. Even if you're not familiar with the character of Spawn, the short builds atmosphere and mystery using economical storytelling.