FrightFest 2024 ODEON LUXE WEST END Screen 1
FILM PROGRAMME
ODEON LUXE WEST END Screen 1 (165 capacity)
Discovery Screen 1
THURSDAY 22 AUGUST 2024
8.15pm CINDERELLA’S CURSE (World Premiere)
Director: Louisa Warren. With: Kelly Ryan Sanson, Chrissie Wunna, Lauren Budd, Natasha Tosini. UK 2024. 78 mins.
Once Upon A Time… the Disney princesses now get in on the horror legend act and here’s the first of a spine-chilling twist on a familiar fairytale. Simple yet beautiful handmaid Cinderella wishes for love and happiness, but she finds herself ill-treated and abused daily by her evil stepsisters and stepmother, unable to escape their cruel clutches. Until she summons her fairy godmother from an ancient flesh-bound book, who is able to grant Cinderella her greatest wish: ultimate revenge. Now, with bloodlust, Cinderella goes to the ball to massacre those who have done her wrong before the hour strikes midnight.
10.35pm CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS (International Premiere)
Director: Alice Maio Mackay. With: Jeremy Moineau, Olivia Deeble, Yassica Switakowski, Dominique Booth. Australia 2024. 70 mins.
19 year-old, transgender filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay is already one of the most exciting names in modern horror with five features already under her belt. So FrightFest is delighted to welcome the T BLOCKERS director back with another signature fun-gory, stylish shocker. When true-crime podcaster and sleuth Lola visits her hometown at Christmas for the first time since escaping and transitioning, the vengeful ghost of a historical murderer and urban legend seemingly arises to kill again. Lola must solve the case before her community is slaughtered. She’s up against not only a psychotic killer, but a town haunted by secrets.
FRIDAY 23 AUGUST 2024
11.00am THE DAEMON (World Premiere)
Directors: David Yohe, Matt Devino. With: Adriana Isabel, Tyler Q Rosen, Sara Fletcher, Oscar Wilson. USA 2024. 87 mins.
Haunted by his father’s suicide, Tom abandons his wife Kathy and seeks refuge at the lakeside cottage where he met his tragic end. There, tormented memories from childhood resurface, all intricately connected to an ancient, mystifying force lurking beneath the lake’s depths, driving Tom inexorably towards madness. As Tom’s communication dwindles into eerie silence, Kathy enlists the help of her brother Mark and sister-in-law Jess, a trauma and grief counselor. Unaware of the sinister malevolence seeping from the lake, Tom becomes a willing vessel for the same evil that claimed his parents and now threatens all who dare draw near.
1.25pm THE LONELY MAN WITH THE GHOST MACHINE (European Premiere)
Director: Graham Skipper. With: Graham Skipper, Paul Guyet, Christina Bennett Lind. USA 2024. 85 mins
After a global catastrophe, the last man on Earth finds himself questioning his purpose and sanity as both his deceased wife and a mysterious stranger confront him with his past, his present, and whatever future might remain in the wastes of a dead world. I AM LEGEND meets A CHRISTMAS CAROL by way of cosmic H. P. Lovecraft from FrightFest guest favourite, actor/director Graham Skipper (SUITABLE FLESH, THE LEECH, MIND’S EYE, SEQUENCE BREAK). A personal endeavour that allows gutsy Skipper to test his heart-felt mettle in a claustrophobic environment with an emotionally complex character. Let the madness begin!
3.40pm SCARLET BLUE (UK Premiere)
Director: Aurélia Mengin. With: Stefano Cassetti, Patricia Barzyk, Emmanuel Bonami, Amélie Daure. France 2024. 106 mins.
Forty-year-old Alter suffers from depression, schizophrenia and a schism of communication with her mother. After a suicide attempt she consults a healer who practices mystical hypnosis and lives an isolated existence in a cave. And it seems Léandro Lecreulx’s unique methods are effective for with each session he infiltrates deeper into Alter’s unconscious and connects her to her deepest childhood fears. Then Léandro gives her a Polaroid camera so she can take photos before and after each crisis. Will they help piece together her memory loss puzzle?
6.15pm THE BUNKER Trieste Science+Fiction Presentation (International Premiere)
Director: Brian Hanson. With: Chelsea Edmundson, Chad Michael Collins, Tobin Bell, Tony Todd. USA 2024. 92 mins.
From Brian Hanson, director of THE BLACK STRING, and starring horror icons Tobin Bell and Tony Todd, comes an alien invasion with a stark difference! When mysterious intergalactic ships appear in the sky, government scientist Dr. Michelle Reilly (a compelling performance from Chelsea Edmundson, star of ARMY OF THE DEAD) is assigned a crucial role in the ET research and sealed in an underground bunker. There she must create a bio-weapon to stop the unknown visitors before they can take over the Earth. But paranoia and isolation cause her to question the true intention of her mission with devastating consequences.
8.45pm DOCUMENTARY: CHILDREN OF THE WICKER MAN (World Premiere)
Directors: Justin Hardy, Dominic Hardy, Chris Nunn. With: UK 2024. 86 mins
Fifty years on from The Wicker Man, director Robin Hardy’s lost papers come to his filmmaker son Justin. Enlisting his brother Dominic, they journey to discover the complex nature of independent filmmaking and fatherhood. Justin’s view of the film is tainted because it robbed him of his father, home and mother; Dominic is more distanced, his experience relating to its subsequent cult status. But what was Robin’s creative contribution to the iconic shocker? Fans may not always like what the brothers find, but will come closer to understanding the evolution of a fantasy classic and the maverick director behind it.
11.05pm MUTILATOR 2 (International Premiere)
Director: Buddy Cooper. With: Terry Kiser, Eva Hamilton, Chaney Morrow, Cody Renee Cameron. USA 2024. 81 mins.
Many years after its initial 1984 release, the slasher classic THE MUTILATOR about a college student accidentally killing his mother with a shotgun is being remade. A wrap party has been scheduled for the night following the final day of shooting. Cast members of the original film have been invited too and everyone is excited. Unfortunately they are besieged by an unknown killer, who favours the use of the same or similarly-flavoured nautical implements of death as used by Big Ed, the original grief-crazed Mutilator maniac. Let the gore and glee begin with a vengeance.
SATURDAY 24 AUGUST 2024
10.45am FIRST BLOOD: TOUCHDOWN (World Premiere)
Director: Josephine Rose. With: Will Attenborough, Cressida Bonas, Kai Luke Brummer, Jason Flemyng. UK 2024. 78 mins.
When meteor storms bring a new life form to earth, global authorities implement emergency controls as they move in secret to eliminate the predators. A group of five friends, who are separated in different countries across the world, risk everything to survive. Do they cower in place or face their fears and head out into the world to re-find each other as they come face to face with the monster. In the tradition of DISTRICT 9 and CLOVERFIELD, a grounded sci-fi adventure intended to speak of our time and the creeping growth of authoritarianism.
1.00pm FIRST BLOOD: SCOPOPHOBIA (World Premiere)
Director: Aled Owen. With: Catrin Jones, Emma Stacey, Ellen Jane Thomas, Bethany William Potter. UK 2024. 102 mins.
Scopophobia: The extreme irrational fear of being looked at. Four girls return home to a ghost town but find themselves being followed. By someone who knows what they did? Or just their guilty conscience? However, there’s more to each girl than meets the eye. From Melyn Pictures, inspired by the Giallo films of Italy. Giallo translates to Yellow, which in Welsh is Melyn. First time director Aled Owen uses the titular fear of being stared at and relates it to the medium of film itself in an exciting genre crossbreed of slasher, horror and Hitchcockian thriller within a gore-fest trenchcoat.
3.30pm FIRST BLOOD: YEAR 10 (World Premiere)
Director: Benjamin Goodger. With: Toby Goodger, Hannah Khalique-Brown, Duncan Lacroix. UK 2024. 96 mins.
A cataclysmic event has blackened the sky plunging the earth into an endless winter. Toxic clouds turned rain to acid, crops can’t grow and the human race is all but extinct. Deep in the dying forest Son and his Father eke out an existence scavenging the wreckage of the former world. Though their lives are bleak they have each other. But when Son’s girlfriend is struck down by an infection, everything falls apart. A group of violent cannibals descend on their safe haven, take the antibiotics keeping his girlfriend alive and a treacherous journey into the unknown begins.
6.00pm FIRST BLOOD: PROTEIN (World Premiere)
Director: Tony Burke. With: Craig Russell, Andrea Hall, Charles Dale, Ross O’Hennessy. UK 2024. 100 mins.
Based on his 2014 short film of the same name, award-winning film, content and music video director Tony Burke makes his feature debut with a grim chiller about a traumatised ex-squaddie and serial killer returning to South Wales to escape his demons. There Sion (Craig Russell, CANARIES), becomes work-out and gym-obsessed and eats a local drug dealer for their protein. Compelled to kill again he sends shockwaves through the local criminal underworld and inadvertently sparks a brutal and bloodthirsty tit-for-tat turf war between rival gangs. Soon the bloody events set Sion on an unlikely road to redemption.
8.35pm FIRST BLOOD: 7 KEYS (World Premiere)
Director: Joy Wilkinson. With: Emma McDonald, Billy Postlethwaite, Amit Shah, Kaylen Luke. UK 2024. 94 mins.
A pulsing thriller about bad romance in London today. In a world obsessed with dating apps and real estate, a generation is trying to make a connection and find their corner of the capital, while the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to grow. Daniel has kept the keys to every place he ever lived. Lena wants to use them – on the ultimate property porn tour of London, a lost weekend of getting to know each other intimately in other people’s homes. But as Lena unlocks her lover’s past, what began as a risky fantasy becomes a deadly threat.
11.00pm. EVENT: THE DUKE MITCHELL CLUB
SUNDAY 25 AUGUST 2024
11.00am THE A-FRAME (European Premiere)
Director: Calvin Lee Reeder. With: Johnny Whitworth, Nik Dodani, Dana Namrode, Laketa Caston. USA 2024. 82 mins.
Sam is a quantum physicist who develops a machine that creates a tunnel to a subatomic parallel. In his quest to prove the machine’s efficacy, he inadvertently discovers a radical treatment for cancer in lab rats. He now seeks human volunteers. Pianist Donna is his first successful experiment and because her support group is thrilled with her recovery diagnosis she advises stand-up comic Rishi to take the plunge too. Only this time it’s not just a hand that is afflicted but Rishi’s entire body. Prepare for another unconventional jolter from Calvin Lee Reeder, director of THE PROCEDURE and THE RAMBLER.
1.15pm. SHORT FILM SHOWCASE 2 (line-up to be announced)
3.45pm A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (40th Anniversary Screening)
Director: Wes Craven. With: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, John Saxon, Ronee Blakely. USA 1984. 91 mins.
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Wes Craven’s classic shocker that re-energized the teens-in-terror stalk-and-slash cycle and proved getting a good night’s sleep can severely damage your mental health. Join Nancy Thompson (Scream Queen wonder Heather Langenkamp) once again as she shares identical nightmares with four other students about dead child molester Freddie Krueger who returns grotesquely scarred from Hell to haunt their surreal dreams. Craven’s warped, visceral twister epitomised all that was great about 1980s horror,
6.20pm NEVER HAVE I EVER (World Premiere)
Director: Damon Rickard. With: Andrew Lee Potts, Amber Doig-Thorne, Beatrice Fletcher, Johnny Vivash, Graham Skipper. UK 2024. 97 mins.
Sam is having a bad day. He is battling an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, is late on a deadline for a writing gig and risks having to pay back an advance he can’t afford to. Then a series of strange incidents start happening to him… A chance encounter whilst drowning his sorrows sends his already bad day spinning in directions he couldn’t possibly have seen coming. All roads lead back to an incident from his youth and a butterfly effect which sees him embroiled in a continually escalating game of deadly cat and mouse.
9.00pm BOGIEVILLE (World Premiere)
Director: Sean Patrick Cronin. With: Arifin Putra, Eloise Lovell Anderson, Jonathan Hansler, Sean Cronin. USA 2024. 108 mins.
An American Vampire Road Movie. A young couple on the run come across the derelict trailer park, Bogieville. Convinced to stay by the sinister caretaker Crawford they soon learn he is guardian to the residents, a pack of vampires, headed by the formidable Madison who has condemned his 12 year-old daughter to everlasting immortality. An eternal struggle exists between Madison and a rival vampire Billy Cupps, who will stop at nothing to take control of Bogieville. A rollercoaster ride of suspense and terror with an obscure sense of family values, giving a new and unique twist to the vampire legend.
MONDAY 26 AUGUST 2024
10.50am. SHORT FILM SHOWCASE 3 (line-up to be announced)
1.30pm CHARLOTTE (World Premiere)
Director: Georgia Conlan. With Georgia Conlan, Louis Brogan, Dean Kilbey, Liam Conlan. UK 2024. 86 mins.
In the dead of night, Charlotte, a young girl, appears at Roy’s doorstep, fleeing from her abusive father. Despite a few too many drinks, Roy reluctantly offers her shelter for the night. What begins as a simple act of kindness, soon evolves into a complex relationship as Charlotte’s stay extends beyond a single night. As the days pass and Charlotte’s trust in Roy deepens, tension mounts as the audience is left to ponder the true nature of their connection. With each startling revelation, the line between protector and predator blurs, leading you to question if they are who they seem.
4.00pm AGATHA (World Premiere)
Directors: Roland Becerra & Kelly Bigelow. With the voices of Emily Joyce-Dial, Ryan Whiting, Erin McDonough, Lauren Mascali. USA 2024. 60 mins.
The Professor is a man suffering from a terminal disease. By a strange twist of fate he witnesses an incredible event involving his mysterious neighbor Agatha. In the hope of finding a cure to his sickness, he agrees to follow her on a strange and risky journey into a forgotten but not entirely deserted urban wasteland beset by the passing of time and the disintegration of nature, institutions, and people. A decade in the making, this unique and experimental horror film is a visually stunning mix of aesthetically stylised live-action and animation designed to evoke an unsettling mood and atmosphere.
6.30pm SCARED SHITLESS (International Premiere)
Director: Vivieno Caldinelli. With: Steven Ogg, Daniel Doheny, Chelsea Clark, Mark McKinney. Canada 2024. 76 mins.
A wild creature feature touching on the universal fear of being attacked when most vulnerable… on the toilet! Plumber Don and Sonny, his germaphobic son, are forced to care for each other after the death of Sonny’s mom. To help Sonny overcome both his grief and fear, Don drags him on a routine house-call, where they encounter a plumber’s worst nightmare — a bloodthirsty creature that’s swimming through the pipes, killing the building’s tenants in an increasingly grisly fashion. With the help of the night manager, Patricia, the team vows to stop the monster from escaping into the city’s water system.
