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The 24th edition of the amazing Frightfest is nearly here! For those unaware Frightfest is the largest Uk horror film festival. Frightfest covers everything from horror classics and documentaries to the newest horror film releases.

Frightfest will show seventy films over the course of five days. The films aim to break cultural barriers by representing 14 countries, making Frightfest one large melting pot of horror. Thats a lot of movies to cover, let’s see breakdown whats showing at Frightfest this year.

THURSDAY 24TH

THURSDAY 24 AUGUST 5.45 PM

Just days ago, Elizabeth Derby was a successful psychiatrist with a loving husband and the world at her fingertips. Now, she finds herself locked up inside a psych ward after the murder of a young male patient to whom she had an inexplicable, almost otherworldly attraction.

Hoping to clear her name, Elizabeth confides in her doctor and recounts what happened, giving way to a bizarre and disturbing tale of sexual madness, supernatural horror, and homicidal rage.

From festival Favourite Joe Lynch comes a gory, horny, and outlandish love letter to the late, great RE-ANIMATOR director Stuart Gordon, a new body horror take on H.P Lovecraft-minded cosmic mayhem that’s a must-watch for fans of raunchy 80s horror.

THURSDAY 24 AUGUST 8.25 PM

Experienced scuba divers May and Drew are two sisters with a close but complex bond who go on a deep sea diving trip to a beautiful but remote beauty spot. During their dive, May is struck by a rock from a landslide above the water, leaving her trapped on the seabed 28 meters below the surface.

With dangerously low levels of oxygen and cold temperatures taking their toll, it‘s up to Drew to fight for her life, which jeopardizes her own. It’s the suspense action adventure of the year based on the 2020 Swedish thriller BREAKING SURFACE.

THURSDAY 24 AUGUST 10.55 PM

On the surface, it’s believed to be another urban legend – a supernatural being from the afterlife, Clara Miller, violently kills anyone who cheats on their significant other in the small college town of Silvercreek, Pennsylvania. But the town’s unusually high suicide rate is finally convincing both locals and college students that everything is not as it seems. When student Maeve sleeps with Charlie, the married man of the host family she is staying with, both senses the deadly curse is closing in on them.  For in Silvercreek, your sins are not forgotten.

FRIDAY 25TH

FRIDAY 25TH AUGUST 10.45AM

An impressive directorial debut from Bishal Dutta reveals chilling allegories for identity crises told through a unique diversity lens. Indian-American Samidha is at that point where her culture and hanging out as a normal teenager collide.

She has supportive parents and a teacher ally, and she’s interested in a boy named Russ. But none of this matters when her estranged friend Tamira breaks a jar she claims houses an ancient demon.

When the evil force kidnaps Tamira and starts targeting her friends and family, Samidha must acknowledge that some legends are true as she tries to end the reign of terror.

FRIDAY 25 AUGUST 1.10 PM

While trying to enjoy a peaceful Halloween with his mother, Linda Garner (cult icon Monique Parent, also the star of THAT’S A WRAP), Tim is paid a visit by his rambunctious, up-for-anything friends.

After reluctantly letting them inside the house, he becomes intertwined with the circumstances of their Halloween pranking. One, it turns out that that has broken a sacred tradition between humans and otherworldly deities known as the Aos Si.

A call back to terrors birthed in the mythology, lore and atmospheric dread behind the Halloween traditions based in an ancient Celtic past.

FRIDAY 25 AUGUST 3.30 PM

Frightfest welcomes back The Adams Family, who brought their acclaimed chiller, THE DEEPER YOU DIG, to us in 2019. Composed of John Adams, Toby Poser, and their daughter, Zelda, the family of filmmakers also hit big in 2021 with HELLBENDER and now unveil their latest creation set in the harsh Depression-era America, exploring a dark, eerie journey filled with suspense, thrills, and chills.

Venture into a nightmare alley with the Adams pack as they trace a family of murderous sideshow performers travelling around the world on the dying carnival circuit on a bloody search for eternal life. 

FRIDAY 25 AUGUST 6.15 PM

From writer/director John Rosman, a deadly cat and mouse game based in the Pacific Northwest. Elsa is a brilliant ‘fixer’ assigned to capture a mysterious woman on the run. As the snare of the pursuit tightens, Elsa must fight her own secret battle with the deadly disease ALS to stay on top of the explosive case, before it reaches an apocalyptic endgame. As their two stories interlink, the stakes ratchet up, and their journeys uncover the deep truths of what it means to be alive. And that can only come through the power of acceptance and hope.

FRIDAY 25 AUGUST 8.30 PM

Following her breakout success as the star of a killer clown horror flick, Bowie struggles to capitalize on its success. But when she’s suddenly held hostage by an unhinged fan posing as that same killer clown, horror becomes her reality as she fights to survive the night and escape before he completes his sinister plan to recreate the film’s fatal plot. Masquerading as a home invasion thriller before switching gears to a grisly, vitriolic feminist revenge fantasy, a clever exposé on how the anonymity of the Internet empowers ill-intentioned, abusive people with the ability to show their true colors.

FRIDAY 25 AUGUST 10.45 PM

Marcel Walz, the cult director of BLIND, PRETTY BOY, and the BLOOD FEAST remake is back and up to more splatter mischief. Mason Maestro has just directed what he considers to be his masterpiece, ‘That’s a Wrap.’ All the cast arrives at the studio excited to celebrate what they just created. But they aren’t the only ones there. Someone has dressed up as Mistress, the central slasher, and has decided to make the art real by staging personal and highly stylised kill scenes. One by one, the cast disappears until the true nature of the evening is revealed.

SATURDAY 26TH

SATURDAY 26 AUGUST 10.45 AM

A disgraced journalist (EVIL DEAD RISE star Lily Sullivan) attempts to salvage her career with the ‘Beyond Believable’ podcast geared to solve mysteries and uncover hidden truths. She hits on a story about a strange object suddenly ruining people’s lives.

The more she deep-dives into the origins of the black brick artefact, the more she becomes convinced it’s evidence of an alien conspiracy and government cover-up. Then a package arrives on her remote doorstep, and her research becomes terrifyingly personal.

One superb actor, one amazing location, one brilliant director, one darkly claustrophobic chiller, one world-class science fiction masterpiece.

SATURDAY 26 AUGUST 1.10 PM

From Samuel Bodin, director of the acclaimed Netflix horror series ‘Marianne’, comes the US box-office hit inspired by the short story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allen Poe. A mysterious, constant tap plagues eight-year-old Peter from inside his bedroom wall – a tapping his parents insist is all in his imagination.

His concerned schoolteacher starts enquiring after Peter shows clear evidence of trouble at home. But as Peter’s fear intensifies, he believes his parents could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questions their trust. And for a child, what could be more frightening than that?

SATURDAY 26 AUGUST 3.30 PM

From the creative mind of artist Quarxx comes an aesthetically stunning and relentlessly macabre tale. Nathan and Daniel wake at the scene of a car crash, confused and seemingly unscathed. The two men begin to slowly understand that they did not make it. They are dead.

Nathan’s previous acts will now determine his fate, however reprehensible they might have been. He will have to leave this earthly world and enter the depths of Hell that await him for all eternity and be confronted with other tormented souls whose pain he will be forced to experience by the demon Norgül.

SATURDAY 26 AUGUST 6.20 PM

Jamie and her wife, Alex, try to save their failing marriage by taking an isolated canoe trip in rural Missouri. After Alex breaks her leg, the women find themselves trapped in Jamie’s small hometown overrun by virus-infected ‘Heps’.

Worse, Alex gets scratched by one of the afflicted. After witnessing personal and gruesome horrors, she attempts to sneak away with Alex, only to be betrayed by one of her only connections. Now caught between the group that saved her, a competing militia, and the growing ‘Hep’ threat, is there any chance she can save Alex and finally escape?

The latest French blockbuster from Xavier Gens, director of FRONTIERE(S), HITMAN, THE DIVIDE, COLD SKIN and ‘Gangs of London’. Sam is an exemplary prison inmate. But during a day of official leave, his past catches up with him and a fatal accident means only one choice: escape.

Five years later, he has rebuilt his life in Thailand with the family he’s always dreamed of. But local godfather Narong forces him to plunge into crime again. When Sam wants to halt everything, Narong attacks his family… And Sam will stop at nothing to hunt his executioner down.

SATURDAY 26 AUGUST 11.00 PM

TRANSMISSION is the world’s first channel-surfing horror film. The story unfolds on a television screen as we switch between different channels and slowly realise that each of these channels is actually telling different aspects of the same horrific narrative.

From Michael J. Hurst, director of HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2, PUMPKINHEAD 4: BLOOD FEUD, PARADOX and the ‘Femme Fatales’ TV series, a stranger things movie way out of his comfort zone with familiar fun cameo appearances, wild science fiction, shocker pastiches and outstanding special effects. The cult movie of 2023 is here.

SUNDAY 27TH 

SUNDAY 27 AUGUST 10.45 AM

FrightFest welcomes back MUTE WITNESS director Anthony Waller to the genre. Liz Haines and her daughter Amy move to Germany, where she takes up the position of history teacher at the Hamelin International School.

The annual Pied Piper pageant is celebrated the day after their arrival, which Liz revels in, but Amy finds macabre. Soon Liz is plagued by nightmare visions, and gradually a dark secret in her past is uncovered by the restless spirit of the Piper, the cruel and vengeful minister of harsh justice who seeks out the guilty and punishes them by taking away their children.

SUNDAY 27 AUGUST 1.25 PM

Take a nightmare journey into the darkest sides of nature and the primordial fears buried within us all. A hiker finds himself marooned with a mysterious woman in a remote desert canyon where a pack of feral boys have built a primitive society structured around a brutal coda of entrapment and procreation. A slow-burning survival thriller from prolific music video director Barnaby Clay, this stone-cold shocker confronts the dread of isolation and unchecked toxic masculinity head-on. Boys will be boys, and in the terrifying vastness of the California arid region, their worst desires come out to play.

SUNDAY 27 AUGUST 4.00 PM

David Petersen (“Downtown Abbey’ star Allen Leech) is passing through the Colorado Rockies. After saving a young diner waitress from her violent ex-husband during a break from driving, he hits the road again through a dangerous snow blizzard. But one false move behind the wheel has him waking up inside a ravine and in the freezing eye of the storm. But the cold is the least of his worries. A shadowy beast starts prowling around outside his car. How will he survive? The feature debut of French director Sébastien Drouin, VFX supervisor on 2046, BABYLON A.D. and ALEXANDER.

SUNDAY 27 AUGUST 6.40 PM

A bold coming-of-age story. Joy is an undocumented Filipina immigrant struggling to do her best for her daughter Grace when she secures the perfect job; taking care of an extremely wealthy but terminally ill old man. The position pays well and guarantees a roof over their heads, but soon, Joy realises everything is not as it seems. Something is festering beneath the surface, threatening all they have worked for. Deeply personal, striking a skilful balance between socio-political commentary and spooky scares, Paris Zarcilla’s breakout SXSW sensation is a nightmarish fever dream from an exciting new voice.

MONDAY 28TH

MONDAY 28 AUGUST 11.00 AM

When FrightFest selected director Takeshi Kushida’s extraordinary debut feature WOMAN OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS as part of their Discovery line-up in 2020, we knew it would go the critically acclaimed distance. Forty festival awards and a release in seven countries later, the Japanese visionary unleashes his latest amazing masterwork concerning the boundaries between truth and illusion in today’s new and ever-changing technology world. Thrill to the psycho fantasy of a mother and daughter who achieve love and honesty through imaginary bodies when a futuristic contact lens device with a built-in camera and VR goggles changes their lives forever.

MONDAY 28 AUGUST 1.25 PM

From fraternal writing/director duo Erik and Carson Bloomquist, who scored a big hit at FrightFest 2022 with the summer camp shocker SHE CAME FROM THE WOODS. Now they focus on the holiday slasher with FOUNDERS DAY, a contemporary murder mystery set during a heated mayoral election on the eve of a quaint New England town’s tricentennial. A mischief-laden, blood-soaked splatter-fest in the SCREAM and SAW franchises tradition, this is a slasher for the world we are living in right now. Let the speculation on who’s behind the mask begin…

MONDAY 28 AUGUST 3.50 PM

Heavily pregnant, Maria starts readying her fiancé Viktor’s rural family estate for bed and breakfast guests. Strange noises start occurring, the electricity keeps failing, and she thinks she sees a prowler on the premises. Investigating the cellar, she finds a secret room that hints at dark secrets in the Welling family’s past, linked to the brutal German colonial history of the Herero genocide in 1904. Soon she realises the haunted house has trapped her irrevocably in the claws of an evil family curse. A real-time, one-shot shocker unlike any other, featuring a tour-de-force performance from actor Nilam Farooq. 

One of the most talked about, shocked and controversial blockbuster horror shockers of all time turns 50 years old. And who better to host our celebration screening of ‘The Version You Never Saw’ than national treasure film critic Mark Kermode who knows more about director William Friedkin’s elemental demonic possession saga, based on William Peter Blatty’s bestseller, than anyone else on the planet. Revel again in all the head-turning, vomit-spraying, anti-religious obscenity that remains an assault on the senses retaining its hypnotic, powerful grip that transcended the genre and took this traumatic masterpiece into the terror stratosphere. 

MONDAY 28 AUGUST 9.15 PM

It’s bad enough that elite boarding school students Samantha and Clara can’t go home for Christmas. But things take a deadly turn for the worse when a murderous gang of cult killers arrive, intent on summoning a demon. What must the girls do to survive the night? The second shocker from director Jenn Wexler (remember the 2018 FrightFest smash THE RANGER?) is another wild and thrilling ride offering fresh takes on timeless horror themes. A tribute to the beauty and boldness of classic 1970s horror, anchored in an unlikely friendship between outsiders, it’s time to play THE SACRIFICE GAME. 

And that’s only the main stage films showing this year at Frightfest. For a full Rundown of events check out the official Frightfest page here. Make sure to check back here for updates and all of your horror news.