Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. Alone Together played on Friday, October 13. 

Director Will Kresch, who co-wrote this with A.V. Bach, has put together the tale of Nassdja (DeAnna S. Wright) and her boyfriend Luke (Matthew Kresch). They’re staying at his family cabin during COVID-19 and riots that come from a society unable to deal with the pandemic. The isolation only makes their abusive relationship even more horrible. All of the enforced closeness has led to her having visions while his abuse gets worse with each day.

This is the same cabin where Luke watched his father kill himself and where he’s watching the decline of their relationship as he spies on her phone, even finding all the photos she’s taken of the bruises he’s given her. There’s also a militia man outside the house who may be something more. As the movie goes on, Luke becomes possessed and Nassdja finds an inner power she didn’t know that she had.

The team that made this movie hasn’t made all that many movies, yet this works and will definitely be something to build on in the future. Having two people carry the movie is a big task, but both actors more than live up to that trial. I’m looking for some great things from everyone who made this.

Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. The Deep Dark played on Tuesday, October 17. 

Coal miners in 1950’s France — led by Roland Neville (Samuel Le Bihan), they are Louis (Thomas Solivérès), Miguel (Diego Martín), Polo (Marc Riso), Santini (Bruno Sanches) and Amir (Amir El Kacem), who has just joined the team and sends all of his money home to Morocco — have to take Professor Berthier (Jean-Hugues Anglade) to the deepest, darkest and most dangerous underground locations to get some samples. They get caught underground and if things can get any worse, they do, because they’ve found the resting place of Mok’Nor Roth, known as the Eater of Souls and a servant of Cthulu.

Director and writer Mathieu Turi said, “The Deep Dark (Gueules Noires) will be a mix of horror and adventure, in the best tradition of H.P. Lovecraft stories, but set in a French reality and a strong social context. It’s going to be a character-driven story, confronting the old and the new generations in an exciting and terrifying quest to the unknown.”

Beyond the terror of being trapped so far down in the mines and being in near darkness, lit only by lamps, this movie also has the practical effects puppetry that creates the beast known as Mok’Nor Roth. This comes in France at the end of November and I think that genre lovers here are going to go crazy when they see this.

Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. Howdy, Neighbor! played on Wednesday, October 11. 

When he was just a child, Benjamin Caldwell (Matthew Scott Montgomery, who also wrote this movie) was Bucky on the TV show Howdy, Neighbor! He’s been trying to hide his past but he’s asked to be in a web-based reunion before the show starts streaming again. Before that, his neighbor Chase (Grant Jordan) starts stalking him when he recognizes him from the show.

Ben shares this with neighbor Harley Walker (Debby Ryan) who suggests he contact the police. Benjamin wants to solve it all on his own which is the worst of all plans.

This entire movie is shot on screens, so if you spend all day in Teams calls like I do, it kind of feels like you’re back at work. For anyone else, this is an interesting way of seeing this story as the neighbor gets stranger and Benjamin keeps making some of the worst decisions.

Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. Eight Eyes played on Monday, October 16. 

Cass (Emily Sweet) begins to hear voices while backpacking through Yugoslavia with her husband Gav (Bradford Thomas). She thinks it’s just stress or maybe her marriage not working out. But then a local named Saint Peter (Bruno Veljanovski) offers to show them the real parts of his country and Gav goes missing.

Eight Eyes was shot using a variety of 16mm and Super8 cameras, such as the Aaton XTR Prod Super 16mm, Bolex H16 Super 16, Krasnogorsk 3 Super 16, Leica Leicina Special and Classic Pro Max 8 16×9. 16mm and 8mm film was used to get a vintage look, including animated shots and sequences that were all captured in-camera using a reflected-glass process.

This is also the first production by Vinegar Syndrome, who worked with Not the Funeral Home and Night Loops, the crew that creates Joe Bob’s The Last Drive-In. Director Austin Jennings also directs that show.

Ever since Cass meant Saint Peter, she’s been having hallucinations and hearing voices. And then this gets weird, as we see Gav’s 8mm footage and meet Saint Peter’s strange family and then we descend into folk horror and that kind of 70s occult weirdness that I love filtered through the torture-filled slashers of the mid 2000s.

This is yet another movie that tells me that I should never go to Serbia, the same as how I will never go to so many places that have terrified me so much through cinema.

Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. Teques Chainsaw Massacre played on Friday, October 13. 

Director Rodrigo Hernández-Cruz, wrote this movie with Carlos Marín and Alfredo Mendoza, has created this horror comedy about film students who head to Teques, Mexico with soap opera actress Ana Cecilia Burgos (Jessica Ortiz) to make a horror movie. Reynaldo (Juan Ugarte) is the director who thinks he knows more than he thinks he does. Virginia (Tatiana del Real), Tania (Florencia Rios) and Pau (Danae Reymund) are the crew stuck with making his movie look good.

They soon learn that the movie that they are making is based on a real killer. And that killer? He’s hunting all of them one by one. This movie goes from comedy to straight up slasher and doesn’t look back. If you’re looking for gore, well, this has tons of the sangre y tripas.

Don’t get too attached to anyone in this.

Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. Cannibal Mukbang played on Monday, October 16. 

This film was described as “An exploration of one’s relationships with food, sexuality, and revenge.”

Director and writer Aimee Kuge wrote this movie while experiencing a period of disordered eating and the end of toxic relationships. That led to a movie about an introverted nerd — Mark — who finds himself dangerously deep inside the crazy world of mukbanging after he falls head over heels for a mysterious woman named Ash. She’s super into mukbanging so he finds himself getting into it.

Also: Murder.

What is mukbanging?

The term is from South Korean and means “eating broadcast.” There, professional mukbangers make up to $10,000 a month not including sponsorships from food and drink brands. Basically, they eat huge amounts of food while interacting with their viewers.

Cannibal Mukbang is one strange movie and it looks really gorgeous. I’m excited to see what Kuge does next.

Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. Faceless After Dark plays on Wednesday, October 11. 

Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. Somewhere Quiet plays on Wednesday, October 18. 

Meg (Jennifer Kim) is trying to find a new normal after being part of a brutal kidnapping that she barely escaped. One way that she’s achieving self-care is to take a trip to Cape Codd with her husband Scott (Kentucker Audley). His family has a huge countryside compound that will give her the peace that she needs until his cousin Madeline (Marin Ireland) shows up. Her snobbery unleashes nightmares in Meg as she starts to deal with what she’s live through as well as the truth behind why she was abducted.

Meg and Scott’s relationship begins to unravel as an old woman shows up in the woods and Meg begins to feel that Madeline and her husband are keeping secrets from her. Of course there’s a much darker story behind all of this, as you just knew there was.

Director and writer Olivia West Lloyd has put together a movie that slowly makes you wonder who is right, why Meg has gone through all of this and whether anyone can be trusted. I always wanted to see a movie where a Final Girl tries to deal with the PTSD that had to come from dealing with a horrific situation. This does that but puts her into an even worse one.