Romford Horror Festival is renowned for curating a terrific lineup of fear fare each year that ranges from mind-blowing new independent films to well-respected classics. This year’s edition runs February 27–March 2 at Lumiere Cinema in Romford, U.K.
Following are three offerings from the fest for which I have had an early viewing and consider well worth a watch. Descriptions from Romford Horror Festival’s website are in italics, followed by my thoughts on the films.
Psychopomp
Synopsis: Amidst a super virus that ravages most of the world’s population, a tenacious microbiology student (Brian K. Millard) leads a small team through a rogue planned exposure. But the human trials end tragically, taking his friends’ lives one by one and leaving potential treatments untested. As he becomes more and more isolated, the line between what’s real and what’s not begins to blur.
I’m a hard sell on genre films inspired by — and often made during — COVID-19 lockdown, mainly because of burnout on the subgenre at this point, so when a new film about a deadly virus comes along that offers something exciting and unusual with original ideas, it gets my attention. The most recent feature film to do so is director Anthony Bushman’s Psychopomp (U.S., 2024), a horror-adjacent science fiction thriller made by Bushman and his cowriter and costar Brian K. Millard during the lockdown. Millard delivers an absolutely riveting lead performance as Theo, who takes matters into his own hands when his boss Grant (Bushman) announces on a Zoom meeting that their team cannot break lockdown to come to their lab, even though the members are working on trying to stop the virus. Theo makes an initial decision that puts the lives of his teammates in jeopardy, but choices he makes after that could have a wider ranging effect. The film combines a character study of a man driven to derangement by both desperation and isolation with medical-thriller and mad-scientist elements. Bushman also shot, edited, and did visual effects for Psychopomp, with Millard also performing production sound duties. Bushman and Ashton Solecki, who plays fellow teammate Susan, head up a solid supporting cast. Psychopomp is a true labor of love, with the pair scripting and making the film during COVID-19 lockdown, and Bushman forging ahead to complete it after Millard’s unexpected death during postproduction. The result is a moving slice of genre fare that boasts a huge amount of heart.
Seed of Doubt
Synopsis: When a young Jewish woman (Elizabeth Connick) begins to lose her faith, she must find God or risk giving birth to an unimaginable terror.
Regular readers of Horror Fuel know that I’m greatly interested in folk horror, and director Daniel Daniel’s short film Seed of Doubt (U.K., 2024) delivers an excellent entry in the subgenre. It also explores themes of religious and pregnancy horror in its tale of young, recently widowed pregnant Jewish woman Hadassah (Elizabeth Connick) and her newfound defiance against the beliefs of her parents and their rabbi (Edmund Dehn). Her questioning of faith leads her to an unexpected discovery. Performed in the Yiddish language, the marvelous Eastern European Jewish folklore period atmosphere is strong with the film, captured winningly by cinematographer Martyna Jakimowska and aided wonderfully by Nir Perlman’s score. The performances are top notch, with Connick and Dehn playing off of each other superbly. Daniel has crafted a short that is absolutely captivating.
View the trailer here.
The Red Hourglass
Synopsis: Following a strange and unsettling encounter with a black widow spider, a young virgin woman (Caroline Quigley) finds herself inexplicably pregnant. After the birth of her child, a shadowy cult begins to gather outside her home, drawn to the child as if by dark forces.
While we’re on the subjects of religious horror and pregnancy horror, writer/director B.C. Jones serves up The Red Hourglass (U.S., 2024), a short that also delivers both. Although it shares some themes made most famous by Rosemary’s Baby, it is most certainly its own beast, and is guaranteed to freak out arachnophobes from the onset. Caroline Quigley (Beezel, reviewed here) stars as Rebecca, a woman who finds herself pregnant but insists to her religious mother that she has never known a man in the Biblical sense. After having the baby, highly unsettling occurrences begin happening around her home. The Red Hourglass hit me with a strong 1970s fright-fare–cinema vibe with its shots and framing, with cinematographer Michael Schilling capturing the proceedings superbly. Quigley is fantastic in her starring role. Jones delivers the supernatural goods in his discomfiting horror short.
View trailer here.
For more information, visit https://www.romfordhorrorfestival.com/.
