Dark Nights Film Fest Dares to Disturb with Its 2025 Lineup

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September 5, 2025

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Events | Film Festivals | News

Written by Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry is the Film Festival Editor for Horror Fuel; all film festival related queries and announcements should be sent to him at josephperry@gmail.com. He is a contributing writer for the "Phantom of the Movies VideoScope" and “Drive-In Asylum” print magazines and the websites Gruesome Magazine, Diabolique Magazine, The Scariest Things, B&S About Movies, and When It Was Cool. He is a co-host of the "Uphill Both Ways" pop culture nostalgia podcast and also writes for its website. Joseph occasionally proudly co-writes articles with his son Cohen Perry, who is a film critic in his own right. A former northern Californian and Oregonian, Joseph has been teaching, writing, and living in South Korea since 2008.

Australia’s Dark Nights Film Fest certainly lives up to its name. The festival’s sophomore edition, which runs October 9–12, 2025 in Sydney, has curated some of the most unsettling narrative horror films and documentaries of the year from around the world. Following is the official press announcement.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the cinema, Australia’s darkest genre film festival returns with a wild and savage bite — Volume 2 — promising to scare the living daylights out of all who embrace the Dark Nights Film Fest at Sydney’s Ritz Cinemas.

Nine new features having their Australian Premieres, a vintage bona fide cult classic, and twenty-two new short films, from Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, France, Denmark, Serbia, United Kingdom, United States, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia.

“Dark Nights champions immersive cinema,” says festival director Bryn Tilly, “And dark genre filmmaking demands a big screen, a dark room, and an audience being pulled to the edge of their seat, whether it be a full-throttle, blood-soaked shocker or a creeping, unshakeable sense of cosmic or existential dread. Dark Nights Film Fest’s Volume 2 has all the nightmare boxes ticked.”

The festival’s Opening Night-mare is Stephen Cognetti’s latest, HELL HOUSE LLC: LINEAGE [this article’s featured image]. A bold, slick, and terrifying descent deep into the lore, yet holding fort as a stand-alone freak-out. The first time one of the series has been released to cinemas and this will be its only Australian theatrical screening. Send in the clowns!

From Germany comes BARK, a nail-biting thriller set in a remote forest that sees a desperate city man, tied to a tree, and the mysterious, taunting outdoors man gradually pulling the wicked truth from his captive right up until the shocking end.

For fans of the surreal vibe of David Lynch and desolate allure of Michelangelo Antonioni comes Joshua Erkman’s twisted and brutal neo-noir, A DESERT, following the dangerous plight of a lone photographer into the treacherous heart of America.

Stephen Biro, from Unearthed Films, delivers a fascinating, unfiltered look at the creation and legacy of one of cinema’s most controversial movies of the past fifty years in A SERBIAN DOCUMENTARY, likely to be one of the hot buttons of the festival.

The Serbian double-whammy continues with KARMADONNA, a savage satire, and the debut feature from Aleksandar Radivojević, the co-screenwriter of A SERBIAN FILM. A blistering, profane thriller that lights all manner of cultural and religious fuses and torches them with ferocity.

The masterpiece of gory hilarity, Peter Jackson’s legendary BRAINDEAD, hits the screen in a superb new 4K restoration. Not seen on Australian screens for thirty years, this ingenious display of low-budget filmmaking features the wildest zombie carnage ever committed to celluloid. Miss this at your peril!

Mexican filmmaker Lex Ortega, he of ATROZ infamy, delves deep into nightmarish fears and repulsion with NECROMORPHOSIS – narrated by horror queen Gigi Saul Guerrero – that traces the survivalist extremes of an entomologist trapped in the subterranean filth of the city.

In the year’s most original dark genre movie, SUN, a dancer searches desperately for his missing wife, through a nocturnal NYC and his own personal hell. Dominic Lahiff’s unique hybrid of sound, movement, and fury bursts from the screen.

Four interconnected tales, from four Danish directors, are adapted from the macabre, ghoulish works of master storyteller Hans Christian Andersen to form the superb anthology ADORABLE HUMANS, a horrifying delve into the darkness that lurks beneath the surface of human connection.

Closing Night heralds the brilliant debut feature from US filmmaker Todd Wiseman Jr, THE SCHOOL DUEL, a harrowing, dystopian thriller that burns hard with the evils of gun culture and a dysfunctional future-is-now society, wielding a powerful central performance from its young star.

Nine of the best new Australian short films form the AUSSIE SHORTS SHOWCASE, and the opportunity for the audience to vote for their favourite, while twelve new international shorts are curated with the features showcasing some of the most thrilling emerging filmmakers from around the world.

The weekend sees the return of the popular Movie Boutique, where friendly merchants sell rare high art and deep trash Blu-rays, DVDs, VHS, books, magazines, posters, CDs, vinyls, and other collectibles. Great to hang out between sessions.

Also, a casual, informal Filmmakers Discussion Panel, with four local filmmakers – Josh Reed, Hannah Barlow, Jack Dignan, Jennifer Van Gessel – discussing the hurdles and rewards of micro-to-low-budget feature filmmaking and offering advice. An essential talk for those ready to make the leap.

This year Dark Nights Film Fest was voted one of the “90 Best Genre Film Festivals on Earth” by a panel of over thirty industry experts, published on Dread Central.