Arrow Video FrightFest, the UK’s most popular horror and fantasy film festival celebrates its 21st bloody year with a special digital edition, showcasing twenty-five films, from August 27th to 31st
The festival features seven world premieres and sixteen UK premieres, including Sky Sharks, 12 Hours, Skull: The Mask, Blind, There's No Such Thing as Vampires, The Honeymoon Phase and more!
Check out the full lineup and more details via the official press release, below.
"The menu of sinister treats and gory delights kicks off on the Thursday night with a live streamed quiz, hosted by Mike Muncer, host and producer of ‘Evolution of Horror’ - the UK's #1 horror movie podcast. Mike will be putting your horror knowledge to the test. You can play as a team or as an individual. There will be several different rounds of horror and FrightFest-centric questions. Join in the fun at 8pm on the Evolution of Horror YouTube Channel.
In a first for the festival, the Horror Channel is sponsoring the talent-seeking First Blood strand. Horror Channel will continue to sponsor the strand through to the end of the year, culminating in an award to be presented at the planned October event.
The Short Film Showcases are also back and will be available to watch on demand, and, of course, FrightFest wouldn’t be the same without some sneak previews and tantalising trailers. Plus they’ll be plenty of guests popping up to introduce their films and the FrightFest directors will be hosting some Q & A’s. Watch out for further news announcements soon."
"We will desperately miss seeing all of you in person this August Bank Holiday but are looking forward to our virtual connection where we can say hello to the best family in the world, the FrightFest community," said Festival co-director, Alan Jones. "And if you’ve never experienced a FrightFest before, and have always yearned to join in with the fear, fun and fabulousness now is your chance to find out what you’ve been missing for 21 years."
SKY SHARKS (UK Premiere)
Director: Mark Fehse
Starring: Tony Todd, Lyn Lowry, Mick Garris, Barbara Nedeljakova
Germany 2020 (110 mins.)
The sea is not enough! Deep in the ice of the Antarctic, a team of geologists uncover an old Nazi laboratory where dark experiments had occurred. In order to conquer the world, the Nazis created modified sharks, which were able to fly and whose riders were genetically mutated, undead super humans. So a military task force known as ‘Dead Flesh Four’ – comprising reanimated U.S. soldiers who fell in Vietnam – is put together to prevent the universe from facing the jawsome menace again. From Germany with love and years in the epic making, there’s no time to die in SKY SHARKS.
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS VAMPIRES (World Premiere)
Director: Logan Thomas
Starring: Meg Foster, Raphael Sbarge, Emma Holzer, Maria Olsen
USA 2020 (81 mins.)
Get ready for the Fright Night of your life as the opening frames of visual stylist Logan Thomas’ turbo-charged terror thunders into a breakneck chase that takes place over a thirty-six hour period. Stranger heroes, Joshua and Ariel, literally crash into each other along a dark road in the dead of night… and before long find themselves pursued across North America, the target of an unstoppable supernatural force. Drawing inspiration from THE TERMINATOR, MAD MAX and John Carpenter’s output, the pace, frenzy and superior special effects whip up a powerful fury of fun, exciting and nail-biting storytelling.
12 HOUR SHIFT (UK Premiere)
Director: Brea Grant
Starring: Angela Bettis, David Arquette, Chloe Farnworth, Mick Foley
USA 2020 (86 mins.)
It’s 1999, the Y2K bug crisis is news, and at a seedy Arkansas hospital, junkie nurse Mandy (MAY’s Angela Bettis) is about to work a double shift. But patient care is not top of her agenda. She’s in the organ trafficking business with her erratic cousin Regina who is about to pick up a kidney from her and take it to the dealers. But the kidney gets misplaced, and Mandy must find another source, or else she’s toast. Then her brother and a convicted killer are brought into the ER. What else could possibly go outrageously and gruesomely wrong?
I AM LISA (World Premiere)
Director: Patrick Rea
Starring: Kristen Vaganos, Jennifer Seward, Manon Halliburton, Carmen Anello
USA 2020 (92 mins.)
From director Patrick Rea, who brought ENCLOSURE/ARBOR DEMON to FrightFest 2016, a lycanthropic homage to Richard Matheson’s classic novel ‘I Am Legend’ and its 1964 movie adaptation THE LAST MAN ON EARTH starring Vincent Price. A vicious and corrupt small-town sheriff and her deputies brutalise Lisa and leave her for dead in the nearby woods. There she is bitten by a werewolf and bestowed with supernatural abilities. Can Lisa retain her humanity as she exacts revenge and cedes herself more and more to the wolf side of her personality? A creature feature primed to bullseye the current female empowerment zeitgeist.
TRIGGERED (UK Premiere)
Director: Alastair Orr
Starring: Reine Swart, Sean Cameron Michael, Liesl Ahlers, Craig Urbani
South Africa 2020 (90 mins.)
A sick, twisted, slasher variation on THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME from Alastair Orr, director of the FrightFest favourite, FROM A HOUSE ON WILLOW STREET. Nine friends, all harbouring a dark secret, go camping in the woods. After a wild night of partying, they wake up with Suicide Vests strapped onto their chests. All have varying times on their countdown clocks. At first they decide to work together, find out how to disarm the bombs and look for help. But then they discover they can ‘take’ one another’s time by killing each other. Let the Battle Royale begin…
THE COLUMNIST (UK Premiere)
Director: Ivo van Aart
Starring: Genio de Groot, Katja Herbers, Rein Hofman, Bram van der Kelen
The Netherlands 2019 (86 mins.)
Fancy a bit of mindless cyber-bullying and trolling? Be careful who you pick though as the victim chosen may decide to fight back. And before you know it you might be fighting for your life! Newspaper columnist and writer’s blocked author Femke Boot (Katja Herbers from ‘Westworld’) is suddenly flooded with anonymous nasty messages and death threats on her social media pages. Who is responsible and why are they doing it? When she finds out her revenge is swift and unfortunately deadly. And her mission in life becomes crystal clear. A heightened reality, shockingly fun, pitch black comedy of manners.
THE HORROR CROWD (World Premiere)
Director: Ruben Pla
Starring: Russell Mulcahy, Lin Shaye, Darren Lynn Bousman, Ryan Turek. Mike Mendez, Brea Grant
USA 2020 (92 mins.)
Fear… the most primal of human emotions. DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, THE WOLFMAN… THE EXORCIST, JAWS, ALIEN… What made the creators of these films dream up the nightmares that kept us up at night? Were they as strange and twisted as their creations? And what about today’s creators of horror? Who are the minds behind the macabre of the present day? A revealing, intimate documentary from veteran actor insider Ruben Pla spotlighting the Hollywood horror community, covering such wide-ranging topics as Being The Weird Kid, Sparking The Imagination, Women In Horror, Race Relations, Helping Each Other, Film Festivals, and The Dark Side.
BLIND (UK Premiere)
Director: Marcel Walz
Starring: Sarah French, Jed Rowen, Caroline Williams, Tyler Gallant
USA 2020 (88 mins)
Faye is a former actress who lost her vision, and starry career, due to botched laser eye surgery. Struggling to put her lonely and panic-stricken life back together while living alone in her Hollywood Hills dream house, she’s supported by her visually impaired friend Sophia, and her mute physical trainer, Luke. However, what none of them are aware of is the infatuated stranger secretly living in her basement. And the masked Pretty Boy doesn’t wait until dark to finally make his move.
DON’T CLICK (World Premiere)
Director: G-Hey Kim
Starring: Valter Skarsgård, Mark Koufos, Catherine Howard, Ry Barrett
Canada 2020 (90 mins.)
Some things you can’t unsee… After returning from a late night out, Josh finds his college roommate, Zane, has gone missing. All that remains is his laptop with the screen flashing on a graphic pornography website. As the flashing intensifies, Josh too blacks out, only to suddenly wake up beside Zane in a dank, surreal cellar with no apparent way out. As Josh tries everything he can to save both his friend and himself from a vengeful entity that begins to take control of their bodies and minds, he realises his biggest challenge to escape may be himself.
THE HONEYMOON PHASE (UK Premiere)
Director: Phillip G. Carroll Jr.
Starring: François Chau, Tara Westwood, Ione Butler, Mike Sutton
USA 2020 (89 mins.)
Struggling young lovers Tom and Eve lie about being married so they can enter ‘The Millennium Project’. For a fee of $50,000, the 30-day scientific study analyses the relationships of participating couples while they reside in clinically futuristic, secluded smart homes. Run by a mysterious researcher and his associate, the experiment leads Eve into a violent descent of madness questioning her lover’s trust. Is Eve suffering from cabin fever? Or is it just part of the study Tom’s in on? For he might not be the man she thinks he is in this FATAL ATTRACTION meets ‘Black Mirror’ sci-fi horror.
PLAYHOUSE ("First Blood" World Premiere)
Directors: Toby Watts, Fionn Watts
Starring: Julie Higginson, James Rottger, Helen Mackay, Rebecca Calienda
UK 2020 (87 mins.)
Reckless Jack Travis is an irreverent horror writer notorious for scaring audiences. But as he obsesses over creating a new theatre show set in a haunted Scottish castle, demonic disturbances from deep within the walls begin to prey on his troubled daughter. When the alarming supernatural forces start to close in on him too, Jack is forced to reckon with the terrifying consequences of creating such a dark and macabre play. But will he realise the danger of unearthing a historic curse and stop writing before he damns himself, his personal sanity and those he loves forever?
THEY’RE OUTSIDE ("First Blood" World Premiere)
Directors: Airell Anthony Hayles, Sam Casserly
Starring: Emily Booth, Nicholas Vince, Tom Clayton-Wheatley, Chrissy Randall
UK 2020 (83 mins.)
Fear will find you… Max Spencer, a YouTube celebrity psychologist, host of the show ‘Psychology-Inside/Out’, sets himself the challenge of getting an intensely agoraphobic woman to leave her home in just ten days. However, as the minutes, hours and seconds count down, a creepy local legend about the black magic practicing Green Eyes that holds the town in it’s grip, starts to become a horrifying reality… Combining the best elements of the cursed found footage genre with spellbinding pagan visuals, this is something of a dark fairytale for adults. Starring FrightFest favourites, presenter Emily Booth and HELLRAISER’s Nicholas Vince.
DARK PLACE (UK Premiere)
Directors: Kodie Bedford, Liam Phillips, Robert Braslin, Perun Bonser, Bjorn Stewart
Starring: Nelson Baker, Katherine Beckett, Shakira Clanton, Bernard Curry
Australia 2019 (75 mins.)
A ground-breaking anthology feature telling a quintet of indigenous tales, and using largely indigenous casts, that approach post-colonial Aboriginal Australian history through the though-provoking lenses of historical parallels, horror, gore and fantasy. Female oppression and revenge take centre stage in Kodie Bedford’s punchy ‘Scout’. An insomniac questions her sanity in Liam Phillip’s suspenseful ‘Foe’. Supernatural forces visit a housing commission estate in the gritty ‘Vale Light’ by Rob Braslin. Gothic horror shrouds the woods in Perun Bonser’s atmospheric ‘The Shore’. And Bjorn Stewart brings outback zombies sharply into the frame in the rollicking splatter comedy ‘Killer Native’.
SKULL: THE MASK (UK Premiere)
Directors: Armando Fonseca, Kapel Furman
Starring: Natalia Rodrique, Tristan Aronovich, Guta Ruiz, Eduardo Semerjia.
Brazil 2020 (90 mins.)
In the year 1944, desperate Nazis find a South American artefact with supernatural powers they use in a last-ditch military experiment. But they have no idea how powerful the Mask of Anhangá actually is because he was the executioner of Tahawantinsupay, a Pre-Columbian God. The barbaric experiment fails and now the cursed mask has turned up in Sao Paulo to possess victims who commit visceral sacrifices and shocking bloodbaths. Beatriz Obdias is the policewoman in charge of solving the series of brutal crimes, a slaughter spree of mystically epic proportions, and ones that will challenge her whole belief system.
HAIL TO THE DEADITES (International Premiere)
Director: Steve Villeneuve
Starring: Patricia Tallman, Ellen Sandweiss, Kassie Wesley DePaiva, John Fallon
Canada 2020 (79 mins.)
An entertaining and informative documentary about THE EVIL DEAD and the 1981 cult classic shocker’s continuing cultural impact. Through interviews with the cast, crew, collectors, freaks and geeks, HAIL TO THE DEADITES seeks to illuminate the darkest reaches of director Sam Raimi’s brainchild and its undying and still-growing popularity, an esteem that has spawned four films, a TV series, comic books, figurines, and surpassed even its creator’s wildest dreams. Putting the spotlight on the fans that cultivated and spread this groovy pop-culture infection, join the celebration of those who’ve celebrated one of the most admired fear franchises of all time.
HALL (World Premiere)
Director: Francesco Giannini
Starring: Carolina Bartczak, Yumiko Shaku, Mark Gibson, Bailey Thain
Canada 2020 (85 mins.)
Fear is spreading… When a hotel hallway is ravaged by a dreadful airborne virus, pregnant Japanese runaway wife Naomi is tragically thrust into the fight of her life. After getting infected, she is forced to crawl her way through other helpless victims to escape. In the room next door to her is Val, a mother trapped in a toxic marriage, who must also navigate her way out of the hotel corridor through the long and narrow stretch of isolated carnage, desperately looking for her young daughter Kelly. Will these two women avoid the debilitating sickness and get out alive?
A GHOST WAITS (English Premiere)
Director: Adam Stovall
Starring: MacLeod Andrews, Natalie Walker, Sydney Vollmer, Amanda Miller
USA 2020 (79 mins.)
The breakout hit from FrightFest Glasgow 2020 in a new cut. BEETLEJUICE meets GHOST in debut director Adam Stovall’s remarkable comedy romance featuring an absolutely brilliant performance from headliner MacLeod Andrews, star of THE SIREN. Jack’s job is to fix up the house. Spectral agent Muriel’s eternal task is to haunt it. They should be enemies, but they become fascinated by one another and eventually smitten, leading them to question everything about their work, lives, and decisions. But as pressure mounts for them to fulfil their duties, something’s got to give for the time together they both so desperately want.
CLAPBOARD JUNGLE: SURVIVING THE INDEPENDENT FILM BUSINESS (European Premiere)
Director: Justin McConnell
Starring: Guillermo del Toro, Buddy Giovinazzo, Charles Band, Frank Henenlotter
Canada 2020 (98 mins.)
Following five years in the life and career of independent filmmaker Justin McConnell, this documentary aims to understand the struggles of financing, attracting the right talent, working with practical effects and selling the finished product in the hope of turning a profit. Interviewing everyone from Guillermo del Toro, Paul Schrader, Dick Miller, Mick Garris, Tom Holland, Sid Haig and a hosts of other genre luminaries, not only are technical aspects and interpersonal skills discussed but also the emotional stamina and little known tips needed to survive in the low-budget film industry.
TWO HEADS CREEK (UK Premiere)
Director: Jesse O’Brien
Starring: Kerry Armstrong, Kathryn Wilder, Gary Sweet, Stephen Hunter
Australia 2019 (93 mins.)
After the death of their adoptive Polish mother, a timid butcher and his drama queen twin sister leave post Brexit UK and take an adventure into the Australian outback in search of their biological mother. But the seemingly tolerant townsfolk of the sleepy Two Heads Creek backwater are hiding a sinister, meaty secret and the pair must reconcile their sibling differences in a fight for their lives.
AQUASLASH (UK Premiere)
Director: Renaud Gauthier
Starring: Nicolas Fontaine, Brittany Drisdelle, Lanisa Dawn, Nick Walker
Canada 2019 (92 mins.)
The Wet Valley Water Park welcomes high school students celebrating their graduation in all their unleashed libido glory. However, in the midst of the ribald romping revels, a black-gloved murderer is tinkering with the water slides and sabotaging the swimming pools. Thrills, chills, spills and screwball comedy meet splashy shocks and gory dismemberment in a chlorine and blood drenched murder mystery.
AV THE HUNT (UK Premiere)
Director: Emre Akay
Starring: Ahmet Rifat Sungar, Baki Kaymaz, Yagizcan Konyah, Billur Melis Koç
Turkey 2019 (86 mins.)
REVENGE meets MIDNIGHT EXPRESS in a fast-paced, hard-boiled and grisly honour killer thriller. A young couple are making love when suddenly a cop barges in. Young and athletic Ayse escapes but her lover is murdered. Now all the men in her strict family are chasing her around the city and the countryside to kill her in order to avenge their honour. Ayse’s only key for endurance is to become as ruthless as those pursuing her. A gruesomely realistic chiller depicting a young woman’s fight and evolution from hunted to hunter in a patriarchal society combined with a strong feminist message.
DARK STORIES (UK Premiere)
Directors: François Descraques, Guillaume Lubrano
Starring: Clément Crochet, Jonas Dinal, Pierre Henri Toubas, Dominique Pinon
France 2019 (75 mins.)
What if Demons, the Living Dead, Evil Dolls, Djinn and other Extra-terrestrial creatures came to haunt our apartments, houses, cafes, museums and other places of daily life? What would we do? How would we react? DARK STORIES tells five tales of gripping terror in a fantastic anthology where horror, suspense and humour intertwine with stark reality to make us shiver with fear! Join us for a Ghoul’s Feast, the Last Judgment before the impending Apocalypse, a surprise package from the deliveryman, a forensic scientist confronted by his zombie victim and the worst Moroccan monster nightmare.
ENHANCED (UK Premiere)
Director: James Mark
Starring: George Tchortov, Alanna Bale, Adrian Holmes, Chris Mark
Canada 2019 (99 mins.)
George belongs to a powerful secret unit dedicated to hunting down illegal mutants after an experiment goes bad. David, an unstoppable ‘Enhanced’, claiming vengeance against the corrupt government who used him, tracks down other similar mutants to join his mission. But when he starts to eliminate them, getting stronger each time he kills others just like him, his true psychopathic plans are revealed. For he is planning world domination of a transformed kind. Now George must join forces with an unlikely partner, Anna, a mutant he captured to end David’s killing spree.
BLINDERS (UK Premiere)
Director: Tyler Savage
Starring: Christine Ko, Vincent Van Horn, Michael Lee Joplin, Dusty Sorg
USA 2020 (90 mins.)
We now live in a world where fake news is reality, where the bad guys win because they manipulate our collective vulnerabilities. Meet Andy Escobedo, starting fresh after a messy break-up, relocating from Austin to Los Angeles. Eager to make new connections, he befriends Roger, an unusual rides hare driver. But when Roger’s behaviour gets too strange for comfort, Andy dumps him, choosing to focus on a budding relationship with Sam instead. But Roger has no intention of being ditched that easily…
THE SWERVE (UK Premiere)
Director: Dean Kapsalis
Starring: Azura Skye, Bryce Pinkham, Ashley Bell, Zach Rand
USA 2018 (95 mins.)
In writer/director Dean Kapsalis’ stunning feature debut, a shimmering American take on Michael Haneke-style torment, a woman battles depression, rodents, guilt and more in a superbly acted slow burner certain to leave a haunting impression. Holly is a wife, mother, teacher, and daughter whose psychosis starts to crumble after she’s part of a deadly car accident. But did that actually happen or not? Just one of many things on her disintegrating mind, along with her difficult two sons, her very distant husband, a student in class who shows inappropriate interest and her ‘perfect’ sister who returns to the fold.
Passes and tickets will go on sale Saturday, August 1st and details on how to access the event and choose which films to watch are on the FrightFest website. All the films are Geo-locked and can only be viewed in the UK and Ireland, and only residents of the UK and Ireland can purchase tickets.
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