Horror Fuel
☰ Browse the Crypt
Category

Film Festivals

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

817 stories
U.K.'s Fortean Film Festival Set to Open Eyes and Minds to the Highly Unusual

U.K.’s Fortean Film Festival Set to Open Eyes and Minds to the Highly Unusual

Are you intrigued by the unbelievable, the unusual, and the unexplained? If so, the International Fortean Film Festival’s 2022 edition, set for September 2 and 3 in Gloucester, U.K., should be your destination for high-strangeness cinema. From the supernatural to cryptozoology to alien life and far beyond, the fest has selected an outstanding array of narrative and documentary features and short films. I can already attest to the hypnotic draw of writer/director Alexander Roman’s New Orleans-set occult mystery Cats of the Bayou (ASMR). Following are a few of the other highlights from the festival’s official selections that I am greatly looking forward to. For more information including the full list of official selections and ticket purchasing, visit https://www.forteanfilmfestival.com/. PANTHERA BRITTANIA: Director Matt Everett’s documentary delves into the possibility of Alien Big Cats (ABCs) as the filmmaker lets experts and eyewitnesses have their say. LADY OF THE LAKE: THE SEARCH FOR CHAMP: Champ is an aquatic cryptid said to inhabit Lake

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 30, 2022
Movie Reviews: “Wild Bones” and “Ghostwritten” (Cinequest)

Movie Reviews: “Wild Bones” and “Ghostwritten” (Cinequest)

Wild Bones Dripping with dread and rich in unsettling atmosphere, writer/director Jack James’ Wild Bones (U.K. 2022) is a chilling look at a fracturing mind. Fay (Roxy Bugler) and her stepsister Alice (Mary Roubos) reconnect after their father mysteriously disappears and they inherit his house. Fay’s grasp on reality is slipping, along with her memory. Complicating matters, Fay becomes involved with the man with whom Alice arrived at their father’s home with, Gary (Tom Cray), despite Alice’s warnings about him. James’ film serves up several mysteries; because of Fay’s unreliable psychological state, viewers shouldn’t expect tidy answers. Bugler is superb as the disturbed Fay, and she and Roubos have marvelously realistic sibling chemistry together. James invests Wild Bones with haunting visuals and a tone that travels between deadly serious drama and eerie surreal sequences. The film has a decidedly gothic flavor, and the sound design greatly adds to the film’s mystique. Viewers who appreciate slow-burn and ambiguous fear fare should

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 24, 2022
Movie Reviews: “Wolves” and “Dash” (Cinequest)

Movie Reviews: “Wolves” and “Dash” (Cinequest)

Wolves Haunting Canadian mystery thriller Wolves is a character study of a lonely man (Mark Nocent), unnamed throughout the film, who becomes obsessed with a series of animal mutilations in his wintry city. Fired from his moving job for stealing, and living alone with his pet turtle, the man researches and digs, ceaselessly pushing himself toward dangerous places psychologically and physically. Nocent gives a mesmerizing performance as someone living on edges and driven by dark places inside his mind. Writer/director Danny Dunlop invests his grim, slow-burn chiller with a constant feeling of unease. The sense of isolation is almost unrelenting, from the snow-covered streets to the man’s bare apartment to his almost hermit-like existence. Beautifully shot and masterfully edited by Dunlop, who also provided a fitting score with the help of Rachel Johnstone and Janice Kwan, Wolves is a discomfiting, highly recommended slice of genre cinema. Dash Writer/director Sean Perry’s Dash is a frenetic one-take thriller that goes from dark

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 22, 2022
Sharks, Slashers, and Cocktail-Making Robots Descend on Austin’s Hybrid Fantastic Fest 

Sharks, Slashers, and Cocktail-Making Robots Descend on Austin’s Hybrid Fantastic Fest 

Renowned genre-focused film festival Fantastic Fest has announced a jaw-dropping, drool-inducing lineup of films and in-person events — and those unable to attend in person in Austin, Texas, can enjoy a virtual experience with some chilling, thrilling new releases in the comfort of their own homes. This year’s dates are from September 22nd–29th at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin and on the web via the virtual FF@Home experience from September 29th–October 4th. Following is the official press announcement. There’s only one place where you’ll find killer teddy bears, man-eating sharks, elderly zombies, cocktail-serving robots, and Park Chan-wook . . . all under one roof. That’s right, world-famous genre festival Fantastic Fest is back for its seventeenth edition featuring 21 World Premieres, 14 North American Premieres, and 21 U.S Premieres. The festival will once again take over the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, TX from September 22nd – 29th and on the web via a virtual FF@Home experience

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 17, 2022
"Wrecked": New BBC Horror Series With A Killer Duck Will Quack You Up

“Wrecked”: New BBC Horror Series With A Killer Duck Will Quack You Up

Coming soon from BBC Three is “Wrecked,” a slasher set aboard a cruise ship. BBC Three has now released the first images from the series that features a killer in a duck suit, which may quack you up. “Wrecked” is being described as a tense thriller mixed with comedy and horror, set aboard The Sacramentum cruise ship. It centers on a 20-year-old new recruit, Jamie, as he infiltrates the 3000-strong crew in a desperate race to find his missing sister. “She was working aboard the same vessel on a previous tour and vanished mid charter. Jamie is initiated into cruise life and gets a crash course on the tribes within the staff: the theatre kids, the mafias, and the low-paid workers. For this overworked and underpaid crew, life below deck can be an odyssey of partying and excess… and they remain oblivious to the bloodthirsty murders taking place on board. Jamie is forced to turn detective and uncover the sinister

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Aug 16, 2022
'Next Exit' Takes Viewers On A Road Trip This October (Trailer)

Movie Reviews: “Next Exit” and “Bubba Ho-Tep” (North Bend Film Festival)

Next Exit Writer/director Mali Elfman’s Next Exit is a science-fiction drama with supernatural elements that raises big questions, such as the ever-discussed “Is there life after death and if we discovered there was, how would we handle it?” but eschews attempting to answer such mysteries by instead focusing on the strained relationship between two strangers sharing a car together to willingly end their lives as part of a scientific experiment after it is confirmed that there is, indeed, an afterlife. Rose (Katie Parker of The Haunting of Hill House and Absentia) is haunted by what she has done wrong in the past as well as by a ghost, and she is bitter, angry, and ready to die. Teddy (Rahul Kohli of The Haunting of Bly Manor and iZombie) has issues from being abandoned by his father as a child and sees this opportunity as his chance to finally do something big. The pair are at odds from the beginning but

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 14, 2022
The Netherlands' BUT Film Festival Focuses on Vigilante and Female Revenge for Its 2022 Edition

The Netherlands’ BUT Film Festival Focuses on Vigilante and Female Revenge for Its 2022 Edition

BUT Film Festival (BUTFF) is announcing its line-up of special guests, movie screenings, music shows, and performances. The festival takes place between August 31 and September 4 in Breda, the Netherlands. The main guests this year are Pollyanna McIntosh, the star of The Walking Dead and Vikings, and Robert Bronzi, a performer, actor, stuntman, and Charles Bronson’s clone. BUTFF will show several of the movies in which the guests starred, such as Revenge Ride or The Woman for McIntosh and Escape from Death Block 13 and Death Kiss for Bronzi. The guests will introduce their respective films and hold a Q&A session. FILMS This year’s theme is “Eye for an Eye”, which encapsulates vigilante and female revenge films. For the former, BUTFF will show, among others, New York Ninja, Black Gestapo, or Deadbeat at Dawn. Female revenge movies at the festival will include A Gun for Jennifer, I Spit on Your Grave, and Thriller: A Cruel Picture. BUTFF runs several

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 9, 2022
First Look: Scream Writer Is Back With 'Sick' Premiering At TIFF

First Look: Scream Writer Is Back With ‘Sick’ Premiering At TIFF

One of the films premiering at Midnight Madness at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) from September 8-18, 2022, is Sick, from Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer‘s writer Kevin Williamson. John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, “Black Summer”) directed Sick, which is being described as a “lean, mean, and wickedly timely slasher.” In the film, “Due to the pandemic, Parker and her best friend decide to quarantine at the family lake house alone – or so they think.” Dylan Sprayberry, Jane Adams, Marc Menchaca, Gideon Adlon, Charla Bocchicchio, and Bethlehem Million star. Take a look at the first image from the film above. We’ll update you when we know more.

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Aug 5, 2022
North Bend Film Festival Offers Chills and Thrills This Week

North Bend Film Festival Offers Chills and Thrills This Week

North Bend, Washington, is the home of North Bend Film Festival, which features intriguing, offbeat cinematic offerings this year from August 4–7. Naturally, Horror Fuel readers are most drawn toward the more dark and diabolical films, and the fest comes through with some bold selections. Among the horror, thriller, and horror-adjacent features scheduled are director Clay Tatum’s terrific supernatural comedy The Civil Dead, of which I wrote in my review for the film’s Sundance run, “The Civil Dead packs some emotional wallops along with its unconventional humor, making for one of the most unusual cinematic offerings of the year so far.” Also on tap is LGBTQ chiller Swallowed, which I reviewed during its Overlook Film Festival screenings: “[Director Carter] Smith serves up body horror scenes not for the squeamish and plenty of suspense to keep viewers glued to the screen.” Writer/director Mali Elfman makes her feature directorial debut with Next Exit, which according to North Bend Film Festival’s official description,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 4, 2022
HollyShorts Film Festival Delivers the Horror in Its Hybrid Edition This Month

HollyShorts Film Festival Delivers the Horror in Its Hybrid Edition This Month

With 67 films on offer this year, horror and thriller fans can get stuck into the fantastic selection of films screening at this year’s HollyShorts Film Festival. This exciting strand includes Sam Max’s CHAPERONE starring Zachary Quinto, Double OSCAR® Winner Paul J. Franklin’s FIREWORKS, Thomas Simon’s BOWLHEAD starring John Hursley (Dad), Brian Sepanzyk’s IN THE SHADOW OF GOD starring Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries), Alexandra Magistro’s LOVE YOU MAMA starring The Haunting of Hill House’s Samantha Soyan, Eli Powers’ SKIN AND BONE starring Amanda Seyfried, Evan Miller’s THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS starring Adrianne Palicki alongside Zachary Levi and more. The Oscar® Qualifying HOLLYSHORTS FILM FESTIVAL returns for its much-anticipated 18th edition from August 11-20th, 2022, with an impressive 5,000 entries this year! Epic Dread sponsor this year’s scary strand. As previously, the winners of HollyShorts’ three top prizes will be eligible for nomination at the 2023 Oscars®. Six HollyShorts films were nominated for the 2022 Academy Awards® with two wins for

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 4, 2022

More from Film Festivals

U.K.'s Fortean Film Festival Set to Open Eyes and Minds to the Highly Unusual

U.K.’s Fortean Film Festival Set to Open Eyes and Minds to the Highly Unusual

Are you intrigued by the unbelievable, the unusual, and the unexplained? If so, the International Fortean Film Festival’s 2022 edition, set for September 2 and 3 in Gloucester, U.K., should be your destination for high-strangeness cinema. From the supernatural to cryptozoology to alien life and far beyond, the fest has selected an outstanding array of narrative and documentary features and short films. I can already attest to the hypnotic draw of writer/director Alexander Roman’s New Orleans-set occult mystery Cats of the Bayou (ASMR). Following are a few of the other highlights from the festival’s official selections that I am greatly looking forward to. For more information including the full list of official selections and ticket purchasing, visit https://www.forteanfilmfestival.com/. PANTHERA BRITTANIA: Director Matt Everett’s documentary delves into the possibility of Alien Big Cats (ABCs) as the filmmaker lets experts and eyewitnesses have their say. LADY OF THE LAKE: THE SEARCH FOR CHAMP: Champ is an aquatic cryptid said to inhabit Lake

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 30, 2022
Movie Reviews: “Wild Bones” and “Ghostwritten” (Cinequest)

Movie Reviews: “Wild Bones” and “Ghostwritten” (Cinequest)

Wild Bones Dripping with dread and rich in unsettling atmosphere, writer/director Jack James’ Wild Bones (U.K. 2022) is a chilling look at a fracturing mind. Fay (Roxy Bugler) and her stepsister Alice (Mary Roubos) reconnect after their father mysteriously disappears and they inherit his house. Fay’s grasp on reality is slipping, along with her memory. Complicating matters, Fay becomes involved with the man with whom Alice arrived at their father’s home with, Gary (Tom Cray), despite Alice’s warnings about him. James’ film serves up several mysteries; because of Fay’s unreliable psychological state, viewers shouldn’t expect tidy answers. Bugler is superb as the disturbed Fay, and she and Roubos have marvelously realistic sibling chemistry together. James invests Wild Bones with haunting visuals and a tone that travels between deadly serious drama and eerie surreal sequences. The film has a decidedly gothic flavor, and the sound design greatly adds to the film’s mystique. Viewers who appreciate slow-burn and ambiguous fear fare should

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 24, 2022
Movie Reviews: “Wolves” and “Dash” (Cinequest)

Movie Reviews: “Wolves” and “Dash” (Cinequest)

Wolves Haunting Canadian mystery thriller Wolves is a character study of a lonely man (Mark Nocent), unnamed throughout the film, who becomes obsessed with a series of animal mutilations in his wintry city. Fired from his moving job for stealing, and living alone with his pet turtle, the man researches and digs, ceaselessly pushing himself toward dangerous places psychologically and physically. Nocent gives a mesmerizing performance as someone living on edges and driven by dark places inside his mind. Writer/director Danny Dunlop invests his grim, slow-burn chiller with a constant feeling of unease. The sense of isolation is almost unrelenting, from the snow-covered streets to the man’s bare apartment to his almost hermit-like existence. Beautifully shot and masterfully edited by Dunlop, who also provided a fitting score with the help of Rachel Johnstone and Janice Kwan, Wolves is a discomfiting, highly recommended slice of genre cinema. Dash Writer/director Sean Perry’s Dash is a frenetic one-take thriller that goes from dark

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 22, 2022
Sharks, Slashers, and Cocktail-Making Robots Descend on Austin’s Hybrid Fantastic Fest 

Sharks, Slashers, and Cocktail-Making Robots Descend on Austin’s Hybrid Fantastic Fest 

Renowned genre-focused film festival Fantastic Fest has announced a jaw-dropping, drool-inducing lineup of films and in-person events — and those unable to attend in person in Austin, Texas, can enjoy a virtual experience with some chilling, thrilling new releases in the comfort of their own homes. This year’s dates are from September 22nd–29th at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin and on the web via the virtual FF@Home experience from September 29th–October 4th. Following is the official press announcement. There’s only one place where you’ll find killer teddy bears, man-eating sharks, elderly zombies, cocktail-serving robots, and Park Chan-wook . . . all under one roof. That’s right, world-famous genre festival Fantastic Fest is back for its seventeenth edition featuring 21 World Premieres, 14 North American Premieres, and 21 U.S Premieres. The festival will once again take over the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, TX from September 22nd – 29th and on the web via a virtual FF@Home experience

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 17, 2022
"Wrecked": New BBC Horror Series With A Killer Duck Will Quack You Up

“Wrecked”: New BBC Horror Series With A Killer Duck Will Quack You Up

Coming soon from BBC Three is “Wrecked,” a slasher set aboard a cruise ship. BBC Three has now released the first images from the series that features a killer in a duck suit, which may quack you up. “Wrecked” is being described as a tense thriller mixed with comedy and horror, set aboard The Sacramentum cruise ship. It centers on a 20-year-old new recruit, Jamie, as he infiltrates the 3000-strong crew in a desperate race to find his missing sister. “She was working aboard the same vessel on a previous tour and vanished mid charter. Jamie is initiated into cruise life and gets a crash course on the tribes within the staff: the theatre kids, the mafias, and the low-paid workers. For this overworked and underpaid crew, life below deck can be an odyssey of partying and excess… and they remain oblivious to the bloodthirsty murders taking place on board. Jamie is forced to turn detective and uncover the sinister

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Aug 16, 2022
'Next Exit' Takes Viewers On A Road Trip This October (Trailer)

Movie Reviews: “Next Exit” and “Bubba Ho-Tep” (North Bend Film Festival)

Next Exit Writer/director Mali Elfman’s Next Exit is a science-fiction drama with supernatural elements that raises big questions, such as the ever-discussed “Is there life after death and if we discovered there was, how would we handle it?” but eschews attempting to answer such mysteries by instead focusing on the strained relationship between two strangers sharing a car together to willingly end their lives as part of a scientific experiment after it is confirmed that there is, indeed, an afterlife. Rose (Katie Parker of The Haunting of Hill House and Absentia) is haunted by what she has done wrong in the past as well as by a ghost, and she is bitter, angry, and ready to die. Teddy (Rahul Kohli of The Haunting of Bly Manor and iZombie) has issues from being abandoned by his father as a child and sees this opportunity as his chance to finally do something big. The pair are at odds from the beginning but

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 14, 2022
The Netherlands' BUT Film Festival Focuses on Vigilante and Female Revenge for Its 2022 Edition

The Netherlands’ BUT Film Festival Focuses on Vigilante and Female Revenge for Its 2022 Edition

BUT Film Festival (BUTFF) is announcing its line-up of special guests, movie screenings, music shows, and performances. The festival takes place between August 31 and September 4 in Breda, the Netherlands. The main guests this year are Pollyanna McIntosh, the star of The Walking Dead and Vikings, and Robert Bronzi, a performer, actor, stuntman, and Charles Bronson’s clone. BUTFF will show several of the movies in which the guests starred, such as Revenge Ride or The Woman for McIntosh and Escape from Death Block 13 and Death Kiss for Bronzi. The guests will introduce their respective films and hold a Q&A session. FILMS This year’s theme is “Eye for an Eye”, which encapsulates vigilante and female revenge films. For the former, BUTFF will show, among others, New York Ninja, Black Gestapo, or Deadbeat at Dawn. Female revenge movies at the festival will include A Gun for Jennifer, I Spit on Your Grave, and Thriller: A Cruel Picture. BUTFF runs several

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 9, 2022
First Look: Scream Writer Is Back With 'Sick' Premiering At TIFF

First Look: Scream Writer Is Back With ‘Sick’ Premiering At TIFF

One of the films premiering at Midnight Madness at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) from September 8-18, 2022, is Sick, from Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer‘s writer Kevin Williamson. John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, “Black Summer”) directed Sick, which is being described as a “lean, mean, and wickedly timely slasher.” In the film, “Due to the pandemic, Parker and her best friend decide to quarantine at the family lake house alone – or so they think.” Dylan Sprayberry, Jane Adams, Marc Menchaca, Gideon Adlon, Charla Bocchicchio, and Bethlehem Million star. Take a look at the first image from the film above. We’ll update you when we know more.

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Aug 5, 2022
North Bend Film Festival Offers Chills and Thrills This Week

North Bend Film Festival Offers Chills and Thrills This Week

North Bend, Washington, is the home of North Bend Film Festival, which features intriguing, offbeat cinematic offerings this year from August 4–7. Naturally, Horror Fuel readers are most drawn toward the more dark and diabolical films, and the fest comes through with some bold selections. Among the horror, thriller, and horror-adjacent features scheduled are director Clay Tatum’s terrific supernatural comedy The Civil Dead, of which I wrote in my review for the film’s Sundance run, “The Civil Dead packs some emotional wallops along with its unconventional humor, making for one of the most unusual cinematic offerings of the year so far.” Also on tap is LGBTQ chiller Swallowed, which I reviewed during its Overlook Film Festival screenings: “[Director Carter] Smith serves up body horror scenes not for the squeamish and plenty of suspense to keep viewers glued to the screen.” Writer/director Mali Elfman makes her feature directorial debut with Next Exit, which according to North Bend Film Festival’s official description,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 4, 2022
HollyShorts Film Festival Delivers the Horror in Its Hybrid Edition This Month

HollyShorts Film Festival Delivers the Horror in Its Hybrid Edition This Month

With 67 films on offer this year, horror and thriller fans can get stuck into the fantastic selection of films screening at this year’s HollyShorts Film Festival. This exciting strand includes Sam Max’s CHAPERONE starring Zachary Quinto, Double OSCAR® Winner Paul J. Franklin’s FIREWORKS, Thomas Simon’s BOWLHEAD starring John Hursley (Dad), Brian Sepanzyk’s IN THE SHADOW OF GOD starring Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries), Alexandra Magistro’s LOVE YOU MAMA starring The Haunting of Hill House’s Samantha Soyan, Eli Powers’ SKIN AND BONE starring Amanda Seyfried, Evan Miller’s THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS starring Adrianne Palicki alongside Zachary Levi and more. The Oscar® Qualifying HOLLYSHORTS FILM FESTIVAL returns for its much-anticipated 18th edition from August 11-20th, 2022, with an impressive 5,000 entries this year! Epic Dread sponsor this year’s scary strand. As previously, the winners of HollyShorts’ three top prizes will be eligible for nomination at the 2023 Oscars®. Six HollyShorts films were nominated for the 2022 Academy Awards® with two wins for

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Aug 4, 2022
Next →