CategoryEvents
Horror events, screenings and experiences — premieres, festivals and one-night-only shows.
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Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Director Lindsay Anderson Beer’s Pet Semetary: Bloodlines takes a portion of Stephen King’s novel Pet Semetary and expands it into a feature-length film, resulting in a gory, dread-filled prequel to the book and preceding film adaptations. In 1969, teenaged Jud Crandall (Jackson White) is set to be the first of his family line to leave Ludlow, Maine since the town was founded. He and his girlfriend Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind) are about to leave for Peace Corps duty when she is attacked by the dog belonging to Timmy Baterman (Jack Mulhern), one of Jud’s childhood friends, who has just returned from active duty in Vietnam and whose father Bill (David Duchovny) tries to keep visitors away from the increasingly disturbing Timmy. The attack hospitalizes Norma, keeping the couple in Ludlow longer than they planned, and naturally violent events involving the titular burial grounds occur. Manny (Forrest Goodluck), another longtime friend of Jud’s and Timmy’s, and his sister Donna (Isabella Star
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Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
Australia’s A Night of Horror International Film Festival has a bounty of fear-fare shorts from around the globe on tap. Here is a look at four of the selections that run less than 10 minutes each. Stop Dead (United Kingdom, 2023) Director Emily Greenwood, working from a screenplay by David Scullion, has crafted a highly atmospheric short that sets up an intriguing premise worthy of a feature-length treatment. Police officers Samantha Hall (Sarah Soetaert) and partner Nick Thompson (David Ricardo-Pearce) are stuck on a country road at nighttime because of a flat tire. A young woman (Priya Blackburn) suddenly appears, refusing to heed Hall’s order to stop, telling the officers that if you stop, you die. This supernatural shocker boasts solid production values, good performances, taut direction, and some fast-paced editing that helps the world building and ratchets up the suspense. Merger (United Kingdom, 2022) Working late in a dark office is rarely a good thing to do, but in
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
STRANGE DARLING (2023) Do yourself an immense favor and learn nothing more about the plot of writer/director JT Mollner’s Strange Darling than what I am about to tell you. This film absolutely requires being gone into as cold as possible for maximum effect. The film opens with a preamble about a serial killer’s path through the United States, and then cuts to a coke-snorting man (Kyle Gallner) in a pickup truck chasing down a bloodied woman (Willa Fitzgerald) in a Ford Pinto. She totals the car and runs into the woods, with the rifle-toting man following in pursuit. Mollner takes the concepts of a cat-and-mouse thriller and first-date-gone-wrong horror and over the course of six nonlinear chapters, toys with viewer expectations to mind-blowing effect. The film is beautifully shot by actor Giovanni Ribisi in his debut as a director of photography, with several scenes depending on pure, dialogue-free cinema, which he pulls off swimmingly. Fitzgerald and Gallner are both magnificent
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Writer/director Nicholas Tomnay’s What You Wish For caught me off guard several times, and for best results, I recommend going as cold as possible into this horror feature that also serves up social commentary. I certainly won’t spoil any of its intrigue here. Ryan (Nick Stahl), deep in debt to the wrong kind of people to whom to owe large amounts of money, flies to rural Latin America to meet his friend and roommate from their culinary school days, Jack (Brian Groh), after not seeing each other for 12 years. Jack is currently seemingly living the high life as a private chef, being flown from one country to another by his bosses and given lavish places to live as he prepares event dinners for high-end clients. Although Ryan envies Jack’s extravagant lifestyle — including his bank balance, at which Ryan gets a peek — Jack seems to be in a rather gloomy state of mind, and when events lead to
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The 14th edition of Austria’s superb SLASH Filmfestival is underway! From September 21 through October 1, this renowned fest screens a selection of incredible short films from around the globe along with its fine feature films. From the terrifying to the hilarious, the SLASH Filmfestival shorts programs are a highlight of the fest. Following is the official press announcement. For more information including a full listing of films scheduled, visit https://slashfilmfestival.com/en/. The programs Five carefully curated programs and various shorts before features bring a total of 48 short films from all corners of the world to Vienna. With over 34 World, International, European or Austrian premieres, the 14th edition of SLASH Filmfestival has its largest short-film lineup ever and sees the festival take new initiatives to celebrate the short form in its own right. In addition to program mainstays Fantastic Shorts Competition Chapters 1 and 2, SLASH is delighted to bring back “My First SLASH” to continue guiding young viewers
Continue reading →
EventsFilm FestivalsMoviesNews
Columbus, Ohio’s Nightmares Film Festival returns this year from October 26–29 and it has something for fear-fare fanatics and genre-film aficionados of every stripe. Boasting 17 feature films and more than 150 short films, along with exciting live experiences, the fest is a can’t-miss experience. Monsters (Cryptids; The Deep Dark) murderers (Departing Seniors; Santa Isn’t Real) and mirth (How to Kill Monsters) abound! Following is the official press announcement. Nightmares Film Festival, FilmFreeway’s #1-ranked genre fest, today revealed its 2023 program of #BetterHorror. In its eighth year, the fest is building even more community beyond the screen with the addition of live experiences to its heralded #BetterHorror film and screenplay slate. The four-day Nightmare program once again delivers a must-see lineup collected from new and beloved genre voices around the world, with highlights including the boundary-smashing queer coming-of-age midnighter The People’s Joker, notoriously pulled from TIFF; the world premiere of Zac Locke’s (#Float) psychological Christmas horror Santa Isn’t Real; the
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesNewsThrillerTrailersTrue CrimeTrue Story
In a quaint little town in 1974 Florida, an ominous white van stalks a young girl, while her parents’ skepticism leads to a terrifying Halloween nightmare in The Man in the White Van. Inspired by a true story, the film delves into the eerie underbelly of a seemingly idyllic and follows the harrowing experience of young Annie Williams, a spirited girl whose carefree existence is turned upside down as she becomes stalked by an ominous man in a white van. The tranquility of Annie’s world begins to crumble as the menacing white van inches closer and closer. As her parents’ skepticism increasingly grows, Annie finds herself isolated, and on Halloween night, her worst fears materialize into a full-blown nightmare as she gets abducted. Warren Skeels makes his directorial debut with The Man in the White Van, a gripping tale of terror, paranoia, and the darkness that lurks beneath the surface. Based on actual events of the serial killer Billy Mansfield
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Writer/director Yong-Min Lee’s South Korean horror film A Bloodthirsty Killer is absolutely bonkers! First-time viewers will join protagonist Shi-Mok Lee (Ye-Chun Lee) in having no idea what is going on for many of the opening scenes, and after that it’s nigh on impossible to guess what is coming next, straight through to the rather sappy ending. Businessman Lee is first seen wandering through a deserted museum where he finds nothing but a melting painting of his first wife Ae-ja (Geum-Bong Do) and is then transported by a mysterious taxi driver to a secluded house where he witnesses a murder at the hands of the ghost of Ae-ja. I don’t want to give much more away because the ride with A Bloodthirsty Killer is a wild one, full of what-could-possibly-happen-next? surprises, so suffice it to say that the supernatural — in more forms than one — and familial drama are among the elements at play, with all-in performances ranging from the
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
COLD MEAT (2023) Cold Meat should be gone into — no pun intended — as cold as possible. Learning too much about director Sébastien Drouin’s winter-set horror thriller before watching it would be doing a great disservice to yourself. Suffice it to give you the initial set-up: traveler David (Allen Leech) is traveling through an extremely snowy area in Colorado. He stops off at a diner, where he calmly intervenes when waitress Ana (Nina Bergman) is physically and verbally harassed by her drunken ex Vincent (Yan Tual), who leaves without further incident. When David gets back on the road, Vincent pursues him in a larger vehicle and David strands his car in deep snow when trying to elude the violent man. What follows is a combination of survival horror — taking place mostly in David’s car and its immediate surroundings — and another fear-fare element that would be a big spoiler to give away here, and there may be something
Continue reading →
EventsGamingIndieNewsParanormalProductSci-Fi
Feardemic’s Fear Fest has come to an end this evening (Cracow time) following a two-day event that ended with the Horror Game Awards, where golden bats were given to the winners after fans around the world cast their votes for 13 categories. The following are the 13 categories along with their winners! Best Game Design of the Year: Resident Evil 4 Best Audio Design of the Year: Dead Space Best Score/Soundtrack of the Year: Resident Evil 4 Best Horror Trailer of the Year: Silent Hill 2 Best Performance of the Year: Nick Apostolides (Resident Evil 4) Best Horror Multiplayer of the Year: The Outlast Trials Best VR/AR Horror of the Year: Resident Evil Village Best Horror Content Creator of the Year: The Sphere Hunter Best Narrative of the Year: Signalis Best Art Direction of the Year: Scorn Best Indi Horror Game of the Year: Signalis Best Character of the Year: Leon S. Kenedy (Resident Evil 4) Lifetime Achievement Award: Mikael
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Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Director Lindsay Anderson Beer’s Pet Semetary: Bloodlines takes a portion of Stephen King’s novel Pet Semetary and expands it into a feature-length film, resulting in a gory, dread-filled prequel to the book and preceding film adaptations. In 1969, teenaged Jud Crandall (Jackson White) is set to be the first of his family line to leave Ludlow, Maine since the town was founded. He and his girlfriend Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind) are about to leave for Peace Corps duty when she is attacked by the dog belonging to Timmy Baterman (Jack Mulhern), one of Jud’s childhood friends, who has just returned from active duty in Vietnam and whose father Bill (David Duchovny) tries to keep visitors away from the increasingly disturbing Timmy. The attack hospitalizes Norma, keeping the couple in Ludlow longer than they planned, and naturally violent events involving the titular burial grounds occur. Manny (Forrest Goodluck), another longtime friend of Jud’s and Timmy’s, and his sister Donna (Isabella Star
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
Australia’s A Night of Horror International Film Festival has a bounty of fear-fare shorts from around the globe on tap. Here is a look at four of the selections that run less than 10 minutes each. Stop Dead (United Kingdom, 2023) Director Emily Greenwood, working from a screenplay by David Scullion, has crafted a highly atmospheric short that sets up an intriguing premise worthy of a feature-length treatment. Police officers Samantha Hall (Sarah Soetaert) and partner Nick Thompson (David Ricardo-Pearce) are stuck on a country road at nighttime because of a flat tire. A young woman (Priya Blackburn) suddenly appears, refusing to heed Hall’s order to stop, telling the officers that if you stop, you die. This supernatural shocker boasts solid production values, good performances, taut direction, and some fast-paced editing that helps the world building and ratchets up the suspense. Merger (United Kingdom, 2022) Working late in a dark office is rarely a good thing to do, but in
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
STRANGE DARLING (2023) Do yourself an immense favor and learn nothing more about the plot of writer/director JT Mollner’s Strange Darling than what I am about to tell you. This film absolutely requires being gone into as cold as possible for maximum effect. The film opens with a preamble about a serial killer’s path through the United States, and then cuts to a coke-snorting man (Kyle Gallner) in a pickup truck chasing down a bloodied woman (Willa Fitzgerald) in a Ford Pinto. She totals the car and runs into the woods, with the rifle-toting man following in pursuit. Mollner takes the concepts of a cat-and-mouse thriller and first-date-gone-wrong horror and over the course of six nonlinear chapters, toys with viewer expectations to mind-blowing effect. The film is beautifully shot by actor Giovanni Ribisi in his debut as a director of photography, with several scenes depending on pure, dialogue-free cinema, which he pulls off swimmingly. Fitzgerald and Gallner are both magnificent
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Writer/director Nicholas Tomnay’s What You Wish For caught me off guard several times, and for best results, I recommend going as cold as possible into this horror feature that also serves up social commentary. I certainly won’t spoil any of its intrigue here. Ryan (Nick Stahl), deep in debt to the wrong kind of people to whom to owe large amounts of money, flies to rural Latin America to meet his friend and roommate from their culinary school days, Jack (Brian Groh), after not seeing each other for 12 years. Jack is currently seemingly living the high life as a private chef, being flown from one country to another by his bosses and given lavish places to live as he prepares event dinners for high-end clients. Although Ryan envies Jack’s extravagant lifestyle — including his bank balance, at which Ryan gets a peek — Jack seems to be in a rather gloomy state of mind, and when events lead to
Continue reading →
EventsFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesNewsShort FilmsThriller
The 14th edition of Austria’s superb SLASH Filmfestival is underway! From September 21 through October 1, this renowned fest screens a selection of incredible short films from around the globe along with its fine feature films. From the terrifying to the hilarious, the SLASH Filmfestival shorts programs are a highlight of the fest. Following is the official press announcement. For more information including a full listing of films scheduled, visit https://slashfilmfestival.com/en/. The programs Five carefully curated programs and various shorts before features bring a total of 48 short films from all corners of the world to Vienna. With over 34 World, International, European or Austrian premieres, the 14th edition of SLASH Filmfestival has its largest short-film lineup ever and sees the festival take new initiatives to celebrate the short form in its own right. In addition to program mainstays Fantastic Shorts Competition Chapters 1 and 2, SLASH is delighted to bring back “My First SLASH” to continue guiding young viewers
Continue reading →
EventsFilm FestivalsMoviesNews
Columbus, Ohio’s Nightmares Film Festival returns this year from October 26–29 and it has something for fear-fare fanatics and genre-film aficionados of every stripe. Boasting 17 feature films and more than 150 short films, along with exciting live experiences, the fest is a can’t-miss experience. Monsters (Cryptids; The Deep Dark) murderers (Departing Seniors; Santa Isn’t Real) and mirth (How to Kill Monsters) abound! Following is the official press announcement. Nightmares Film Festival, FilmFreeway’s #1-ranked genre fest, today revealed its 2023 program of #BetterHorror. In its eighth year, the fest is building even more community beyond the screen with the addition of live experiences to its heralded #BetterHorror film and screenplay slate. The four-day Nightmare program once again delivers a must-see lineup collected from new and beloved genre voices around the world, with highlights including the boundary-smashing queer coming-of-age midnighter The People’s Joker, notoriously pulled from TIFF; the world premiere of Zac Locke’s (#Float) psychological Christmas horror Santa Isn’t Real; the
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesNewsThrillerTrailersTrue CrimeTrue Story
In a quaint little town in 1974 Florida, an ominous white van stalks a young girl, while her parents’ skepticism leads to a terrifying Halloween nightmare in The Man in the White Van. Inspired by a true story, the film delves into the eerie underbelly of a seemingly idyllic and follows the harrowing experience of young Annie Williams, a spirited girl whose carefree existence is turned upside down as she becomes stalked by an ominous man in a white van. The tranquility of Annie’s world begins to crumble as the menacing white van inches closer and closer. As her parents’ skepticism increasingly grows, Annie finds herself isolated, and on Halloween night, her worst fears materialize into a full-blown nightmare as she gets abducted. Warren Skeels makes his directorial debut with The Man in the White Van, a gripping tale of terror, paranoia, and the darkness that lurks beneath the surface. Based on actual events of the serial killer Billy Mansfield
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Writer/director Yong-Min Lee’s South Korean horror film A Bloodthirsty Killer is absolutely bonkers! First-time viewers will join protagonist Shi-Mok Lee (Ye-Chun Lee) in having no idea what is going on for many of the opening scenes, and after that it’s nigh on impossible to guess what is coming next, straight through to the rather sappy ending. Businessman Lee is first seen wandering through a deserted museum where he finds nothing but a melting painting of his first wife Ae-ja (Geum-Bong Do) and is then transported by a mysterious taxi driver to a secluded house where he witnesses a murder at the hands of the ghost of Ae-ja. I don’t want to give much more away because the ride with A Bloodthirsty Killer is a wild one, full of what-could-possibly-happen-next? surprises, so suffice it to say that the supernatural — in more forms than one — and familial drama are among the elements at play, with all-in performances ranging from the
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
COLD MEAT (2023) Cold Meat should be gone into — no pun intended — as cold as possible. Learning too much about director Sébastien Drouin’s winter-set horror thriller before watching it would be doing a great disservice to yourself. Suffice it to give you the initial set-up: traveler David (Allen Leech) is traveling through an extremely snowy area in Colorado. He stops off at a diner, where he calmly intervenes when waitress Ana (Nina Bergman) is physically and verbally harassed by her drunken ex Vincent (Yan Tual), who leaves without further incident. When David gets back on the road, Vincent pursues him in a larger vehicle and David strands his car in deep snow when trying to elude the violent man. What follows is a combination of survival horror — taking place mostly in David’s car and its immediate surroundings — and another fear-fare element that would be a big spoiler to give away here, and there may be something
Continue reading →
EventsGamingIndieNewsParanormalProductSci-Fi
Feardemic’s Fear Fest has come to an end this evening (Cracow time) following a two-day event that ended with the Horror Game Awards, where golden bats were given to the winners after fans around the world cast their votes for 13 categories. The following are the 13 categories along with their winners! Best Game Design of the Year: Resident Evil 4 Best Audio Design of the Year: Dead Space Best Score/Soundtrack of the Year: Resident Evil 4 Best Horror Trailer of the Year: Silent Hill 2 Best Performance of the Year: Nick Apostolides (Resident Evil 4) Best Horror Multiplayer of the Year: The Outlast Trials Best VR/AR Horror of the Year: Resident Evil Village Best Horror Content Creator of the Year: The Sphere Hunter Best Narrative of the Year: Signalis Best Art Direction of the Year: Scorn Best Indi Horror Game of the Year: Signalis Best Character of the Year: Leon S. Kenedy (Resident Evil 4) Lifetime Achievement Award: Mikael
Continue reading →
