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Horror film festivals worldwide — lineups, awards and the titles that break out of the festival circuit.

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Shorts Reviews: Starf*ckers, Letter to a Pig, and Censor of Dreams (SLASH Film Festival)

Shorts Reviews: Starf*ckers, Letter to a Pig, and Censor of Dreams (SLASH Film Festival)

The following three shorts were part of SLASH Film Festival’s Fantastic Futures competition, which consisted of nine shorts from student filmmakers or first-time filmmakers. Starfuckers Writer/director/star Antonio Marziale delivers a gripping revenge thriller of a decidedly different kind with his short film Starfuckers (2022). The short begins with genre elements such as plastic sheets covering a floor and an atmosphere thick with tension as a young man (Cole Doman) meets a middle-aged man (Jonathan Slavin) with power dynamics obviously skewed toward the older man, who happens to be a film director. The director seems to make a habit of promising male escorts roles in his films that never come about, and a second young man (Marziale) shows up unexpectedly to make his feelings known in an unforgettable way. Marziale gives a jaw-dropping, star-making drag performance that lingers long after the short ends, and is reason enough to seek out this powerful take on Hollywood corruption, though there are plenty of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 17, 2022
Movie Review: Zebra Girl (A Night of Horror International Film Festival)

Movie Review: Zebra Girl (A Night of Horror International Film Festival)

U.K. mystery thriller Zebra Girl (2021) is rich with slowly unfolding shocks and surprises, and is the kind of film that is difficult to discuss much in a review for concern of giving too much away for future viewers. Director Stephanie Zari’s chilling film is ultimately a character study of a highly troubled woman dealing with the emotional and psychological aftermath of having gone through horrifying events when she was younger, and how it affects her as an adult. Catherine (Sarah Roy) and English professor Dan (Tom Cullen) meet online and then in-person for a first date, during which she makes a startling confession and then asks Dan to do the same. Hers is far darker than his, but she later finds out that he was hiding a secret from her worse than the one he had originally told her. After they marry and she becomes pregnant, Dan’s secret threatens to drive Catherine to drastic measures. She calls her estranged

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 14, 2022
Blades In The Darkness Making Its US Premiere At Days Of The Dead

Blades In The Darkness Making Its US Premiere At Days Of The Dead

Produced by Aspide 1UG e J&K Media Partner, the action-packed horror film Blades in the Darkness, from director by Alex Visani (The Pyramid, Stomach, Born Dead), is headed your way. Shot entirely in Tirana, in Albania, inside an old abandoned post-communist bunker. With extreme wheater and temperature conditions ( 10 degrees below zero), the movie was shot 20 meters under the surface. Full of action, gore, and twists, Blades in the Darkness is the Albanian reply to a cult classic like Predator. Written by Alex Viani & Lorenzo Lepori, the movie has a big cast with the Italian star Manuela Arcuri, Lorenzo Lepori, Francesco Rossini (Dracula 3D), and Arnold Damazzeti, the emerging martial artist from Albania Tirana 1997. “The chaos left by the fall of communism has opened the doors to a bloody civil war. Matia, just a teenager, is harassed by his playmates. In an attempt to escape, he hides inside an abandoned bunker. In that spooky building, Matia

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Oct 13, 2022
Movie Review: “Satanic Hispanics” (Fantastic Fest)

Movie Review: “Satanic Hispanics” (Fantastic Fest)

Boasting, as the film’s poster says, “5 stories from 5 Latino AF directors,” Satanic Hispanics is a fine entry in the horror anthologies subgenre. The film balances the spooky and the humorous quite well, resulting in a highly satisfying effort. The wraparound story, directed by Mike Mendez, concerns the questioning of a man who calls himself The Traveler (Efren Ramirez) — the sole survivor of a massacre that saw the lives of 27 other people taken — by Detectives Gibbons (Sonya Eddy) and Arden (Greg Grunberg). In the vein of classic Amicus and Hammer horror anthologies, he regales the detectives, sometimes to their dismay and often to their shock, with a series of tales. First up is “Tambien Lo Vi,” written and directed by Demian Rugna, which concerns Rubik’s Cube tournament competitor Gustavo (Demián Salomón), who believes he has discovered a method to reveal the afterlife. He talks a podcaster into checking out his technique, which leads to grim consequences

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 12, 2022
Film Review: Good Boy (Beyond Fest)

Film Review: Good Boy (Beyond Fest)

About as cautionary a fable as you can have for both meeting strangers through online dating apps and not following first impressions, writer/director Viljar Bøe’s Norwegian chiller Good Boy (2022) is a dark journey, indeed. Part-time university student Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen) and non-working millionaire Christian (Gard Løkke) meet on tinder, and their first date goes well enough that they wind up in bed at his house. Things take a turn for the unexpected when Frank’s dog walks into the bedroom. Frank, as viewers see in the opening minutes of the film, is actually a man (Nicolai Narvesen Lied) in a canine costume participating in “puppy play” role playing. Naturally, this freaks Sigrid out, but once her roommate tips her off about who Christian is and about his wealth, Sigrid begins to second-guess the red flags she originally felt about the situation. She meets Christian at his home again and sparks fly even as she questions the relationship between

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 12, 2022
Movie Reviews: Mother Superior, Last Seen, and The Businessman (SLASH Film Festival)

Movie Reviews: Mother Superior, Last Seen, and The Businessman (SLASH Film Festival)

Mother Superior (2022) Writer/director Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s Austrian horror thriller Mother Superior, set in 1975, finds anesthesiste-in-training Sigrun (Isabella Hӓndler) hired on as a nurse for elderly Baroness Heidenreich (Inge Maux). The baroness has been going through a series of nurses rather quickly, but Sigrun hopes to stay on longer than her predecessors. This has less to do with job security than it does with the fact that she hopes to find some clue about her own past. This being a horror film with mystery elements, the main setting is naturally an isolated rural mansion. Wolfszahn and cinematographer Gabriel Krajanek use this setting to full effect as Sigrun wanders through dark areas, including ones that she has been forbidden to enter. The beautifully sunlit grounds provide a sharp contrast to the dimly lit house. I don’t want to spoil the several shades of mystery at play in Mother Superior, so suffice it to say that the main characters — including

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 7, 2022
New Comic 'Seven Years In Darkness' Debuting At NYCC

New Comic ‘Seven Years In Darkness’ Debuting At NYCC

Joseph Schmalke and CEX Publishing are launching a comic series, Seven Years in Darkness, and attendees at New York Comic-Con will get their first look thanks to an Ashcan being sold at the convention. The comic tells the story of the first group of students to enter a wizarding school in over a hundred years. 72 children are selected for the new class, but only seven will graduate, alive. Joseph Schmalke is the Co-Publisher of Black Caravan and a comics creator, writer, and illustrator residing in Westbrook, Maine. Joe is the artist and writer of several comic book titles including The Infernal Pact, Cherry Blackbird, Phantom Starkler, and more. “Seven Years In Darkness breaks with some horror taboos where children could die in a high fantasy winner-takes-all situation,” Schmalke said. “A group of kids are forced into the academy of Black Magic and while seventy-two enter only seven will leave alive. CEX took a bold move picking up this book

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Oct 6, 2022
Lund Fantastic 2022: Sweden's Premiere Genre Film Festival Reveals Its First Wave

Lund Fantastic 2022: Sweden’s Premiere Genre Film Festival Reveals Its First Wave

Sweden’s Lund Fantastic Film Festival celebrates its 28th edition from October 27–November 5, 2022 with another mind-boggling array of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and related genre films. The fest has announced its first wave of titles, which includes offerings that have been receiving recognition and rave reviews from previous international festivals at which they have screened. More titles will be revealed soon! Following is the festival’s official first wave announcement. The Lund Fantastic Film Festival is back and about to celebrate the broad spectrum of genre cinema once more. From October 27 until November 5, the 28th edition of Lund Fantastic is set to return to Kino and TriArtPlay for a selection of physical and virtual screenings that bring the most distinct or diverse fantastic films to the local Swedish audience. Opening on October 27, Carlota Pereda’s Sundance sensation Piggy reveals a blood-soaked debut that presents a relevant, honest story packed with talent and emotion in equal measure. The festival

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 6, 2022
Movie Reviews: “The Elderly” and “Disappear Completely” (Fantastic Fest)

Movie Reviews: “The Elderly” and “Disappear Completely” (Fantastic Fest)

The Elderly Codirectors Raúl Cerezo and Fernando Gonzáles Gómez wowed festival audiences earlier this year with their shocker The Passenger, and now the duo is back with another fine slice of fright-fare cinema, The Elderly (Spain, 2022). Manuel (Zorion Eguileor) finds his life deteriorating after his wife of 50 years falls to her death from their apartment window. Manuel’s son Mario (Gustavo Salmerón) wants his father to move in with them rather than wind up in a nursing home, much to the consternation of his new and pregnant wife Lena (Irene Anula), for whom Mario’s teenage daughter Naia (Paula Gallego) shows little affection. Add to this family drama the fact that Manuel’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre and even threatening — and the same goes for all of the older people with whom the family members come into contact — and you have the set-up for a film that offers a good share of mystery, shudders, and bizarre imagery. The performances

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 4, 2022
Movie Reviews: Jewish Mysticism and Lore Make for Frightening Fare in “The Offering” and “Attachment” (Fantastic Fest)

Movie Reviews: Jewish Mysticism and Lore Make for Frightening Fare in “The Offering” and “Attachment” (Fantastic Fest)

The Offering Though straight-up American exorcism horror films after the classic The Exorcist have largely been rehashes of the usual tired tropes, scare-fare cinema dealing with demonic possession from different cultures and countries have often risen above the pack. Director Oliver Park’s The Offering is one such case, as it deals in Hasidic mysticism. Art (Nick Blood) returns to his family home — which houses a funeral home — ostensibly to reconcile with his Orthodox father Saul (Allan Corduner). Art’s pregnant wife Claire (Emily Wiseman), who Saul has had unkind words about in the past, is along for the trip, as well. Saul has softened his stance since the couple’s previous visit, but Art’s ulterior motives are bound to bring new conflict to the family. Meanwhile in Saul’s mortuary, the body of a man who practiced black magic in the film’s opening is in storage, and Art — yes, Art again — unwittingly unleashes a demon into the home. Hank

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 30, 2022

More from Film Festivals

Shorts Reviews: Starf*ckers, Letter to a Pig, and Censor of Dreams (SLASH Film Festival)

Shorts Reviews: Starf*ckers, Letter to a Pig, and Censor of Dreams (SLASH Film Festival)

The following three shorts were part of SLASH Film Festival’s Fantastic Futures competition, which consisted of nine shorts from student filmmakers or first-time filmmakers. Starfuckers Writer/director/star Antonio Marziale delivers a gripping revenge thriller of a decidedly different kind with his short film Starfuckers (2022). The short begins with genre elements such as plastic sheets covering a floor and an atmosphere thick with tension as a young man (Cole Doman) meets a middle-aged man (Jonathan Slavin) with power dynamics obviously skewed toward the older man, who happens to be a film director. The director seems to make a habit of promising male escorts roles in his films that never come about, and a second young man (Marziale) shows up unexpectedly to make his feelings known in an unforgettable way. Marziale gives a jaw-dropping, star-making drag performance that lingers long after the short ends, and is reason enough to seek out this powerful take on Hollywood corruption, though there are plenty of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 17, 2022
Movie Review: Zebra Girl (A Night of Horror International Film Festival)

Movie Review: Zebra Girl (A Night of Horror International Film Festival)

U.K. mystery thriller Zebra Girl (2021) is rich with slowly unfolding shocks and surprises, and is the kind of film that is difficult to discuss much in a review for concern of giving too much away for future viewers. Director Stephanie Zari’s chilling film is ultimately a character study of a highly troubled woman dealing with the emotional and psychological aftermath of having gone through horrifying events when she was younger, and how it affects her as an adult. Catherine (Sarah Roy) and English professor Dan (Tom Cullen) meet online and then in-person for a first date, during which she makes a startling confession and then asks Dan to do the same. Hers is far darker than his, but she later finds out that he was hiding a secret from her worse than the one he had originally told her. After they marry and she becomes pregnant, Dan’s secret threatens to drive Catherine to drastic measures. She calls her estranged

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 14, 2022
Blades In The Darkness Making Its US Premiere At Days Of The Dead

Blades In The Darkness Making Its US Premiere At Days Of The Dead

Produced by Aspide 1UG e J&K Media Partner, the action-packed horror film Blades in the Darkness, from director by Alex Visani (The Pyramid, Stomach, Born Dead), is headed your way. Shot entirely in Tirana, in Albania, inside an old abandoned post-communist bunker. With extreme wheater and temperature conditions ( 10 degrees below zero), the movie was shot 20 meters under the surface. Full of action, gore, and twists, Blades in the Darkness is the Albanian reply to a cult classic like Predator. Written by Alex Viani & Lorenzo Lepori, the movie has a big cast with the Italian star Manuela Arcuri, Lorenzo Lepori, Francesco Rossini (Dracula 3D), and Arnold Damazzeti, the emerging martial artist from Albania Tirana 1997. “The chaos left by the fall of communism has opened the doors to a bloody civil war. Matia, just a teenager, is harassed by his playmates. In an attempt to escape, he hides inside an abandoned bunker. In that spooky building, Matia

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Oct 13, 2022
Movie Review: “Satanic Hispanics” (Fantastic Fest)

Movie Review: “Satanic Hispanics” (Fantastic Fest)

Boasting, as the film’s poster says, “5 stories from 5 Latino AF directors,” Satanic Hispanics is a fine entry in the horror anthologies subgenre. The film balances the spooky and the humorous quite well, resulting in a highly satisfying effort. The wraparound story, directed by Mike Mendez, concerns the questioning of a man who calls himself The Traveler (Efren Ramirez) — the sole survivor of a massacre that saw the lives of 27 other people taken — by Detectives Gibbons (Sonya Eddy) and Arden (Greg Grunberg). In the vein of classic Amicus and Hammer horror anthologies, he regales the detectives, sometimes to their dismay and often to their shock, with a series of tales. First up is “Tambien Lo Vi,” written and directed by Demian Rugna, which concerns Rubik’s Cube tournament competitor Gustavo (Demián Salomón), who believes he has discovered a method to reveal the afterlife. He talks a podcaster into checking out his technique, which leads to grim consequences

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 12, 2022
Film Review: Good Boy (Beyond Fest)

Film Review: Good Boy (Beyond Fest)

About as cautionary a fable as you can have for both meeting strangers through online dating apps and not following first impressions, writer/director Viljar Bøe’s Norwegian chiller Good Boy (2022) is a dark journey, indeed. Part-time university student Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen) and non-working millionaire Christian (Gard Løkke) meet on tinder, and their first date goes well enough that they wind up in bed at his house. Things take a turn for the unexpected when Frank’s dog walks into the bedroom. Frank, as viewers see in the opening minutes of the film, is actually a man (Nicolai Narvesen Lied) in a canine costume participating in “puppy play” role playing. Naturally, this freaks Sigrid out, but once her roommate tips her off about who Christian is and about his wealth, Sigrid begins to second-guess the red flags she originally felt about the situation. She meets Christian at his home again and sparks fly even as she questions the relationship between

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 12, 2022
Movie Reviews: Mother Superior, Last Seen, and The Businessman (SLASH Film Festival)

Movie Reviews: Mother Superior, Last Seen, and The Businessman (SLASH Film Festival)

Mother Superior (2022) Writer/director Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s Austrian horror thriller Mother Superior, set in 1975, finds anesthesiste-in-training Sigrun (Isabella Hӓndler) hired on as a nurse for elderly Baroness Heidenreich (Inge Maux). The baroness has been going through a series of nurses rather quickly, but Sigrun hopes to stay on longer than her predecessors. This has less to do with job security than it does with the fact that she hopes to find some clue about her own past. This being a horror film with mystery elements, the main setting is naturally an isolated rural mansion. Wolfszahn and cinematographer Gabriel Krajanek use this setting to full effect as Sigrun wanders through dark areas, including ones that she has been forbidden to enter. The beautifully sunlit grounds provide a sharp contrast to the dimly lit house. I don’t want to spoil the several shades of mystery at play in Mother Superior, so suffice it to say that the main characters — including

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 7, 2022
New Comic 'Seven Years In Darkness' Debuting At NYCC

New Comic ‘Seven Years In Darkness’ Debuting At NYCC

Joseph Schmalke and CEX Publishing are launching a comic series, Seven Years in Darkness, and attendees at New York Comic-Con will get their first look thanks to an Ashcan being sold at the convention. The comic tells the story of the first group of students to enter a wizarding school in over a hundred years. 72 children are selected for the new class, but only seven will graduate, alive. Joseph Schmalke is the Co-Publisher of Black Caravan and a comics creator, writer, and illustrator residing in Westbrook, Maine. Joe is the artist and writer of several comic book titles including The Infernal Pact, Cherry Blackbird, Phantom Starkler, and more. “Seven Years In Darkness breaks with some horror taboos where children could die in a high fantasy winner-takes-all situation,” Schmalke said. “A group of kids are forced into the academy of Black Magic and while seventy-two enter only seven will leave alive. CEX took a bold move picking up this book

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Oct 6, 2022
Lund Fantastic 2022: Sweden's Premiere Genre Film Festival Reveals Its First Wave

Lund Fantastic 2022: Sweden’s Premiere Genre Film Festival Reveals Its First Wave

Sweden’s Lund Fantastic Film Festival celebrates its 28th edition from October 27–November 5, 2022 with another mind-boggling array of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and related genre films. The fest has announced its first wave of titles, which includes offerings that have been receiving recognition and rave reviews from previous international festivals at which they have screened. More titles will be revealed soon! Following is the festival’s official first wave announcement. The Lund Fantastic Film Festival is back and about to celebrate the broad spectrum of genre cinema once more. From October 27 until November 5, the 28th edition of Lund Fantastic is set to return to Kino and TriArtPlay for a selection of physical and virtual screenings that bring the most distinct or diverse fantastic films to the local Swedish audience. Opening on October 27, Carlota Pereda’s Sundance sensation Piggy reveals a blood-soaked debut that presents a relevant, honest story packed with talent and emotion in equal measure. The festival

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 6, 2022
Movie Reviews: “The Elderly” and “Disappear Completely” (Fantastic Fest)

Movie Reviews: “The Elderly” and “Disappear Completely” (Fantastic Fest)

The Elderly Codirectors Raúl Cerezo and Fernando Gonzáles Gómez wowed festival audiences earlier this year with their shocker The Passenger, and now the duo is back with another fine slice of fright-fare cinema, The Elderly (Spain, 2022). Manuel (Zorion Eguileor) finds his life deteriorating after his wife of 50 years falls to her death from their apartment window. Manuel’s son Mario (Gustavo Salmerón) wants his father to move in with them rather than wind up in a nursing home, much to the consternation of his new and pregnant wife Lena (Irene Anula), for whom Mario’s teenage daughter Naia (Paula Gallego) shows little affection. Add to this family drama the fact that Manuel’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre and even threatening — and the same goes for all of the older people with whom the family members come into contact — and you have the set-up for a film that offers a good share of mystery, shudders, and bizarre imagery. The performances

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 4, 2022
Movie Reviews: Jewish Mysticism and Lore Make for Frightening Fare in “The Offering” and “Attachment” (Fantastic Fest)

Movie Reviews: Jewish Mysticism and Lore Make for Frightening Fare in “The Offering” and “Attachment” (Fantastic Fest)

The Offering Though straight-up American exorcism horror films after the classic The Exorcist have largely been rehashes of the usual tired tropes, scare-fare cinema dealing with demonic possession from different cultures and countries have often risen above the pack. Director Oliver Park’s The Offering is one such case, as it deals in Hasidic mysticism. Art (Nick Blood) returns to his family home — which houses a funeral home — ostensibly to reconcile with his Orthodox father Saul (Allan Corduner). Art’s pregnant wife Claire (Emily Wiseman), who Saul has had unkind words about in the past, is along for the trip, as well. Saul has softened his stance since the couple’s previous visit, but Art’s ulterior motives are bound to bring new conflict to the family. Meanwhile in Saul’s mortuary, the body of a man who practiced black magic in the film’s opening is in storage, and Art — yes, Art again — unwittingly unleashes a demon into the home. Hank

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 30, 2022
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