The Chattanooga Film Festival proves three is indeed the magic number with a ludicrously loaded third and final wave of 2026 announcements.
With two waves of programming, parties and peculiar happenings already announced for its 13th annual event, the Chattanooga Film Festival was just getting warmed up. The festival has now added a third wave of films and fun to the schedule, and true to form it’s as electric as it is eclectic. With screenings and events featuring genre luminaries like Michael Dougherty, Mark Pellington, Barry Bostwick, and C. Robert Cargill, the festival’s fans will be treated to a year filled with reverence for cinema’s history but also the joy of discovering new voices and future favorites.
Leading the charge are a pair of world premieres primed to ooze their way into the hearts (and nightmares) of the festival’s 2026 attendees. Filmmaker Josh Lobo’s Night After Night is a mysterious and maniacal jaw dropper of a follow-up to Lobo’s brilliant debut I Trapped the Devil—which graced CFF’s screens in 2019. In the film, a pair of overnight security guards at a private university experience increasingly disturbing events when a mysterious mute figure begins appearing nightly without explanation. Anchored by a uniformly killer cast including CFF Fan Favorites Scott Poythress and AJ Bowen, Lobo’s latest deftly dodges the sophomore slump and cements his status as one of the coolest voices in genre cinema.
Also, making its debut is the world premiere of filmmaker, writer and photojournalist Andrew Zappin’s wonderfully unhinged The King of Black Goo. From its amazing cast anchored by DJ Qualls (Hustle & Flow, Road Trip), Kathleen Wilhoite, Margaret Cho and Johno Wilson to its colorful world and impossibly detailed production design, Zappin’s bizarro sci-fi comedy may just be the most original and unique rom com you’ll see this decade. The kind of movie practically made for CFF’s audience of warm-hearted weirdos The King of Black Goo follows Qualls and unfolds a genre-bending fairy tale about a bitter, lonely man who undergoes a personality-altering medical procedure in hopes that it will make him worthy of love.
Making its U.S. Premiere at the festival is Australian filmmaker James Branson’s haunting and hard to forget Bunny. In his atmospheric post-apocalypse tale, Branson follows a young woman as she roams the ruins of a world she never got to grow up in. Raised on old books and b-movies, she lives alone in the shack she once shared with her father. Supplies are scarce and food is running out. There’s nothing left to hunt… nothing except other people. Full of incredible imagery and fueled by a remarkable intensity, Bunny is a breathless experience that we think our fans are going to—pun intended—eat up.
Another treat for CFF faithful is the return of the festival’s favorite purveyors of ultra-indie liminal horror. Two years ago the original NOCLIP shattered skulls when it screened here, and last year its equally eerie successor NOCLIP 2 expanded the NOCLIP cinematic universe. And here’s the insane part. While they were here for their NOCLIP 2 screening, filmmakers Gavin Charles and Alex Conn somehow secretly shot an entire third film in our honor, crafting in the process a film as much devoted to the eerie emptiness of liminal spaces as it is to the creativity-crushing difficulties of navigating the film festival circuit. We’re flattered and honored to present our 2026 audience with the opportunity to see a special screening of NOCLIP 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome.
Speaking of special screenings, this year’s virtual fans can also tune in for an episode of the world’s first horror trivia game show Better Luck Than Chuck. Having been raised on a steady diet of MTV’s Remote Control and Tales from the Crypt episodes this is truly a quiz show after our own dark hearts. As with all their virtual events the festival has leaned into interactivity and during the screening audience members can get in on the fun and win mystery movies from sponsor ARROW VIDEO.
CFF is also proud to partner with the folks at Antenna Releasing to present screenings of two incredible documentaries. Nicholas Clark and Dylan Frederick’s American Theater, in which a “canceled” theater director summons a troupe of conservative actors to an abandoned cabin in rural Georgia to plot revenge on the Atlanta theater community with a musical retelling of the 1692 Salem witch trials. Like a non-fiction Waiting For Guffman or Hamlet 2, Clark and Frederick’s wildly entertaining doc is, as one astute Letterboxd reviewer perfectly put it, full of moments that will make you laugh till it hurts and some moments that just hurt. Believe us when we say everyone is going to be talking about this one.
One great doc deserves another, and CFF couldn’t be more excited to honor its tradition of dropping a crowd pleasing banger of a music doc into the mix for its annual SONIC CINEMA offerings. This year it’s not only a great music doc, it’s a great music doc directed by Mark Pellington, one of the undisputed GOATS of the music video era with an insane number of iconic clips to his credit (Alice In Chains, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Flaming Lips and Pearl Jam to name just a few). Pellington also co-created one of the most influential shows in the history of MTV, the short lived but impactful BUZZ. With its sights firmly set on the counterculture, BUZZ reveled in a kaleidoscopic verite approach to culture and the underground and was instrumental in putting diverse and brilliant artists from William S. Burroughs to RuPaul in front of MTV’s 1990 audiences.
In his new doc This Is Buzz, Pellington chronicles the history and the legacy of his influential show as only a true insider could and serves up nothing less than one of the best documentaries you’re likely to see in 2026. Among Pellington’s many incredible contributions to the world of music videos, television and film he’s also the director of one of eeriest and most underrated films of the early 2000s, 2002’s The Mothman Prophecies. CFF is honored to present a special screening of this stone cold cryptid classic with an introduction by Mark himself along with an extended chat about This Is Buzz.
Capping off our collab with ANTENNA RELEASING is a CFF exclusive sneak peek into the whacked out world of multi-time CFF alumnus Mr. Graham Skipper. Skipper will give CFFers an exclusive tease of his forthcoming metaphysical surrealist horror comedy Organonym in which Graham and the equally beloved to CFF’s long time fans actor/filmmaker Jeremy Gardner play versions of themselves. Did we mention the project is produced by one of our other talented 2026 filmmakers Chelsea Stardust (GRIND)?
The CFF’s southern celebration of cinematic strangeness has become a cult-favorite on the festival circuit and the inclusive community of kind-hearted film fans that have embraced the festival have helped to elevate them in just 13 years to one of the key destinations in the U.S. for lovers of fantastic films.
“For fans of genre cinema 13 is an iconic number. This year we turn 13, and we’d be fools not to properly commemorate such a macabre milestone,” said CFF’s Director and Lead Film Programmer Chris Dortch II. “That’s why this year we’ve built a beast for our fans and for everyone that has helped carry us through to our teenage years. Movies have a way of lightening even the darkest of times and every one of us could all use a bit more of that right now. Maybe some cheaper gas and a few less AI data centers too.”
The CFF’s 2026 feature line-up doesn’t end there though with more than 20 additional features and dozens of short films available to both hybrid and virtual festival attendees in addition to the two jam-packed previous waves of announcements. Highlights include the much buzzed about SXSW sensation Sender (featuring Severance‘s Britt Lower and Better Call Saul/Pluribus star Rhea Seehorn), the gorgeous (and deeply strange) animated musical The Obsessed, and a deeply inspiring doc chronicling everyone’s favorite filmmaking family The Adams’ in Blood & Guts.
Then there’s the awesomely intense survivalist slasher Pitfall, Pierre Tsigaridis and co-writer/star Dina Silva’s brilliant and darkly hilarious slasher Frankie, Maniac Woman and the mysterious must-see by Polish filmmakers Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak Glorious Summer, a flat-out masterpiece of a sci-fi drama and one of the best movies of any genre you’ll see in 2026. It also wouldn’t be CFF without at least one skull crusher of a film about a metal band and filmmaker Donnie Hobbie’s JUMP SCARE has its amps turned to eleven and therein Hobbie delivers a crowd-pleasing head-banger of a horror comedy.
Oh boy does the list go on, CFF’s feature line-up, packed with more than 50 films, means that fans will also be treated to brilliant riffs on classic Twilight Zone episodes (The Thing in the Fog), one of the most unique vampire tales ever shot—with stop motion bats no less— (On Gallows Hill), a love letter to physical media that still cares enough to be creepy as hell (Dead Media) and many more.
Also of note is the festival’s multi-pronged salute to Megaforce, one of the finest films in the history of humanity, which we’ll be screening along with filmmaker Bob Lindenmayer’s joy filled celebration of Megaforce, Making Megaforce. The latter is a documentary that will make you cry, warm your heart and remind you that sometimes the only move is to avoid the tyranny of “good” taste and find a little bit of joy in this world. Joining us for an extended chat with doc maker Bob Lindenman and Megaforce star Barry Bostwick (Rocky Horror Picture Show) moderated by the only man for the job—screenwriter, author, producer, and as fans of his popular Junkfood Cinema podcast will know a LITERAL Lieutenant of Megaforce C. Robert Cargill (The Black Phone 1 & 2, Sinister, The Gorge). Get ready to leave CFF 2026 a Megaforce Mega-fan.
Speaking of fans, ensuring that the festival now enters into the sixth year of its on-going commitment to audience accessibility and that fans anywhere in the US can get plugged right into the fun of the festival, the festival’s beloved Fans and Filmmakers Discord Server makes its triumphant return as well boasting its own full schedule of virtual events from filmmaker chats and Q&As to watch parties including nightly midnight gatherings to bask in the wonderful weirdness of the festival’s wildly popular nightly secret screening series REDEYE.
This year the festival’s many night owls will be treated to the craziest collection of films in the block’s history including intros and guest programming by SUPER NEAT special guests including Fangoria’s Amber T to the festival’s longtime collaborator and the madman behind their kinetic annual animations Zack Hall. A nightly celebration of the deepest of cuts and the thriving community of cinephiles that has grown around the festival, REDEYE rides into its fourth year on a pale horse that CFF says fans, “shall know by the trail of dead-ass motion picture madness in its wake.”
On the shorter side of things, the CFF has assembled the largest offering of short films in its 13-year history with more than 130 films from more than 40 countries represented. Anchoring this year’s shorts program and leading the festival’s fan-favorite DANGEROUS VISIONS block is a beautifully restored new version of Season’s Greeting filmmaker Michael Dougherty’s (Trick ‘r Treat, Krampus, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) hand-animated short film that introduced the world to the now iconic Sam character from Dougherty’s beloved Trick ‘r Treat. Season’s Greetings celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and to mark this milestone CFF is honored to have Michael join us for a conversation about Sam’s evolution over the years.
Other highlights of the festival’s stacked 2026 shorts program include the return of can’t miss alumni filmmakers like Chris McInroy (Chair), stop motion animator extraordinaire Matt Eslinger (Cotton Candy Randy), animator Ashley Wong (Forever Home), Aqua Teen Hunger Force creator, writer and actor Dave Willis (Silverbacks), multi-time alumni Chloë Levine (Bloom) , Bill Watterson (Midnight City), Alexandra Basson (Redneck) and more than 100 more of the most creative, crazy and crowd pleasing pieces of short cinema the universe currently has to offer.
FEATURES
Grind (d. Brea Grant, Ed Dougherty, Chelsea Stardust): This horror anthology tackles the modern work landscape through four timely perspectives – the hustle culture of an MLM, the endless repetitiveness of a food delivery driver, the online horrors of a content moderator, and the unionization of a familiar-feeling coffee shop.
Camp (d. Avalon Fast) Presented by Dark Sky: Haunted by a traumatic past, Emily finds solace as a camp counselor while navigating grief, witchcraft and the power of female friendship. Emily feels at home as she’s taken in by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and wrap her in a veil of peace & forgiveness. Emily stands at the forefront of a new kind of life, but there’s a voice out there in the woods she can’t quite seem to ignore. The voice is whispering – and she’s telling Emily to go home.
Flush (d. Grégory Morin) Presented by Dark Sky: Middle-aged coke fiend Luc (Jonathan Lambert, Quentin Dupieux’s Reality) is having a pretty terrible night. Having gone to confront his ex at the club where she works, determined to somehow win back her love, one thing leads to another and he soon finds himself wedged firmly in a toilet, effectively trapping him in a bathroom stall. Trapped, we should mention, with a heap of coke that he stole from the bar’s resident dealer. He’s soon found, setting off an increasingly crazy series of circumstances that veer from the hilarious to the intensely grotesque as Luc’s world is assailed from every conceivable direction in a bizarre race against time that will have you gasping.
First Feature (d. Curtis James Matzke) World Premiere: Intrepid student filmmaker Thomas Reilly-King (affectionately known as TRK) spends years doing whatever it takes to complete his first feature film, aptly titled Enduring Destiny, as classmate Curtis Matzke documents his antics and looks back on the experience together ten years later. Searching for fame in a production spanning several years, the unflappable writer/director/actor calls in every favor and spends his last dime to realize his bizarre vision. The resulting film is its own brand of absurdity, featuring an 80s-style theme song, superfluous green screen, and excessive ADR. He even makes talking action figures of his character. What began as a behind-the-scenes student production, First Feature is a love letter to student filmmaking in the digital age, showcasing the absurdity of what could be a future cult classic.
Mockbuster (d. Anthony Frith): A struggling filmmaker’s chance at redemption collides with chaos and compromise as he navigates the eccentric world of notorious production house, The Asylum. Mockbuster is a comedic, behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of a B-grade smash, The Land That. Time Forgot, that is both an unashamed celebration of trash cinema and a forensic look at the collision between art and commerce.
Lucid (d. Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall): A 1990s art student uses a lucid dreaming elixir to break through creative blocks, but soon finds herself trapped in a nightmarish underworld where her suppressed memories and inner demons become deadly monsters.
American Theater (d. Nicholas Clark & Dylan Frederick) Presented by Antenna Releasing: A “canceled” theater director summons a troupe of conservative actors to an abandoned cabin in rural Georgia to plot revenge on the Atlanta theater community with a musical retelling of the 1692 Salem witch trials.
Assets & Liabilities (d. Zach Weintraub): Zach is a burnt-out suburban father haunted by the impending arrival of middle age. When his family heads out of town for the weekend, he seizes the opportunity to live out a day as his younger, less responsible self. A spontaneous encounter with a fellow skater feels like a victory until an unsettling connection between the two emerges. The result is a forcible confrontation with his own bourgeois standing that shatters the illusion of Zach’s carefree day and sends it spiraling into dark territory.
Blood & Guts (d. Carlye Rubin & Katie Green): The lines between real life and reel life are muddied in the story of the Adams, an unconventional family who makes independent horror films. While they may vomit blood onto one another, lack boundaries and make frequent use of the f-word, they also face what every family must: change.
Bunny (d. James Branson) U.S. Premiere: In the aftermath of a climate collapse, a young woman roams the ruins of a world she never got to grow up in.Raised on old books and b-movies, she lives alone in the shack she once shared with her father.Supplies are scarce and food is running out. There’s nothing left to hunt… …nothing except other people.
Dead Media (d. Joseph Scrimshaw): A troubled young woman wants to relax by streaming an old horror movie. Her lonely Gen X uncle demands they watch it on DVD. But the disc is haunted, plunging them into a movie night that won’t die.
Demonitize (d. Alexander Watson): Out-of-work television ghost hunters discover the key to getting their jobs back – and proving ghosts are real – is by working with the last group of people anyone would expect: Social Media Stars.
Frankie, Maniac Woman (d. Pierre Tsigaridis): After years of wanting to look like those who grace the covers of magazines, Frances Ramirez ends up making headlines in a different way. She is soon to be known as the Maniac Woman.
Glorious Summer (d. Helena Ganjalyan, Bartosz Szpak): In a serene, sun-drenched world, three young girls spend their days in carefree play, mindfulness exercises, and idle contentment. Their every need is meticulously cared for by an all-encompassing, nurturing system that keeps their lives perfectly stable and predictable. For years, they’ve lived in this blissful, responsibility-free bubble, where summer never ends. But cracks soon begin to appear in this idyllic picture.
Lenore (d. David Ward): In the squalid basement of a suburban home, unemployed filmmaker Max Wren (Nicholas Jaquinot) spends his days and nights hunting for footage of the controversial online performance artist Lenore (Ruby Duncan)—piecing together a distorted tribute to her in the wake of her sudden disappearance. But before he can complete his magnum opus, Max must face a domineering antagoniser from his past, two nosy police officers tipped off about his antisocial behaviour, and most concerning of all: a violent and vengeful spirit that seems to live within his grotesque editing Suite.
Making Megaforce (d. Bob Lindenmayer): The original Megaforce (1982), is widely regarded as one of the worst movies of the Eighties and filmmaker Bob Lindenmayer made a documentary about how awesome it is. Starring Barry Bostwick (Rocky Horror Picture Show), 1982’s Megaforce is packed with futuristic vehicles, spandex jumpsuits, insane stunts, and corny dialogue. It’s an adolescent adventure that time has forgotten. But one man remembers: director Bob Lindenmayer, and he’s on a quest to convince the rest of the world just how amazing this under-appreciated stunt-filled spectacle is. The world’s biggest Megaforce fan, Bob owns a fleet of fully operational dune buggies and motorcycles from the film. At first, Bob’s mission is pretty straightforward – chronicle the making of this box-office flop through cast and crew interviews. But when he meets his hero, Barry Bostwick, the film takes a left turn and becomes something more than a documentary – it becomes a hilarious and touching tribute to the power of fandom, friendship, and flying motorcycles.
Megaforce (d. Hal Needham): Whenever freedom is threatened only the rapid deployment defense unit MEGAFORCE (with a little help from their flying motorcycles) can save the day. On its release in 1982 stuntman turned filmmaker Hal Needham’s MEGAFORCE died an unceremonious death and has since carried with it a reputation as one of the worst films of its era. At CFF we think it’s high time MEGAFORCE had a reappraisal. It’s fun, it’s got martial arts and we know we already mentioned flying motorcycles but c’monnnn! If that doesn’t stir your nethers we’re afraid you might be at the wrong film festival. For the rest of you be sure to catch this as a double feature with Bob Lindenmayer’s doc MAKING MEGAFORCE and make sure to check out our extended discussion with Bob and Megaforce star Barry Bostwick moderated by C. Robert Cargill.
Narcisa’s Will (d. Clarissa Appelt, Daniel Dias): Haunted by the memories of her recently deceased mother, the once known Brazilian star Narcisa, Ana wants to sell her childhood home and split the money with her younger brother, Diego. But when her mother’s ghost starts giving signs of her presence in the dressing room, it becomes clear that Narcisa’s will is still stronger than her own, even after death.
Pitfall (d. James Kondelik): After a young man gets separated from his friends in the woods, he falls in to a 10 foot deep pit of spikes, impaling him through his leg and leaving him trapped. He quickly learns that his fall was not an accident but the beginning of a deadly hunt.
On Gallow’s Hill (d. Ed Shimborske): After college screw-up Matt Bishop is bitten by a vampire, he discovers he can only survive on one thing: his own rare blood type. As his thirst grows, Matt descends into a coven underworld, rekindles an old flame, and uncovers the dark secrets of the blood business- forcing him to confront his own morality (and mortality) to stay alive.
Jump Scare (d. Donnie Hobbie): The female metal band JUMP SCARE retreat to a remote cabin to write their next album only to be terrorized by the family of cannibals next door.
Night After Night (d. Josh Lobo) World Premiere: The lives of two overnight security guards at a private university begin to unravel after the discovery of a mysterious individual who returns on a nightly basis.
Noclip 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome (d. Alex Conn & Gavin Charles) Special Screening/World Premiere: In their self described “meta-found-footage / documentary escapade”, Gavin and Alex head to Tennessee to document the premiere of their previous film, and to follow a tip that will lead them to the most liminal spaces in Chattanooga…
Sender (d. Russell Goldman): After receiving a series of unnervingly personal packages she never ordered, a woman, newly sober and starting over, spirals into paranoia, convinced someone is watching her. As the online retailer denies responsibility, her search for the anonymous sender sends her down a dangerous rabbit hole, forcing her to confront her past and the fragile reality she’s trying to rebuild. A tense psychological descent into surveillance, recovery, and self-doubt.
Sunshine Girls (d. Madeleine Hicks): This is the story of Elaine Hamilton, a timid woman nearing her 30th birthday who must make the difficult choice between motherhood and medically induced photosynthesis. In a world that is quite literally suffocating, society has become dependent on the oxygen-producing Sunshine Girls to sustain life. Within the confines of this organization (part new-age adult summer camp, part dystopian prison) Elaine learns that falling in love can take your breath away.
The King of Black Goo (d. Andrew Zappin) World Premiere: A genre-bending fairy tale about a bitter, lonely man who undergoes a personality-altering medical procedure in hopes that it will make them worthy of love.
The Mid-NIght Driver (d. Alex Cherney): When a young girl summons a driver using a seemingly innocent ritual, she must fulfill his demands if she ever wants to get back home in 1992 Long Island
The Mothman Prophecies (d. Mark Pellington): A reporter investigates strange phenomena in a small town in Mark Pellington’s classic of cryptid cinema.
The Obsessed (d. Wataru Takahashi): Inspired by Shinji Ishii’s short story, this whimsical musical follows Giuseppe, a man powered by fleeting obsessions. One day, he’s singing arias, and the next, he’s collecting insects or mastering embroidery with feverish focus. Every new fascination feels like everything—until the next one comes along.
The Thing In the Fog(d. Chedey Reyes): A veteran airplane pilot and his atypical co-pilot in training will find themselves involved in a series of unprecedented interdimensional events, which will turn them into the only hope to save all humanity from the imminent invasion of the Audryes.
This Is Buzz(d. Mark Pellington): Follows the radical impact and lasting relevance of Buzz, an influential MTV series from the 1990s that featured notable contributors including William S. Burroughs and RuPaul as hosts.
With its commitment to audience and filmmaker accessibility, its warm-hearted southern hospitality, and its consistently surprising and eclectic programming, the Chattanooga Film Festival has, in just 13 years, been chosen as One of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World (MovieMaker Magazine), one of FilmFreeway’s Top 100 Best Reviewed Film Festivals in the World out of the nearly 14,000 festivals on that platform, been chosen One of the Best Genre Film (MovieMaker) and Horror Festivals (Dread Central) and hailed as “the gold standard on how to run a welcoming, unpretentious, no-bullshit film fest for folks who want to hang out and have a good time together” by legendary cinema publication FANGORIA.
The Chattanooga Film Festival is a 501c3 non-profit run entirely by a small but passionate crew of volunteers. All proceeds from the festival’s ticket and badge sales and donations go directly to the staging of each year’s festival. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube or even join our virtual monthly secret screening series with The Double Secret Cinema Society on Patreon.
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