FrightFest 2024 ODEON LUXE WEST END Screen 2
FILM PROGRAMME
ODEON LUXE WEST END Screen 2 (75 capacity)
Discovery Screen 2
THURSDAY 22 AUGUST 2024
8.10pm I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE (International Premiere)
Director: DW Medoff. With: Ken Trujillo, Katerina Eichenberger, Emma Anne Wedemeyer, Chris Genovese. USA 2023. 95 mins.
After being released from prison a brooding man with a dark past is forced to stay in a haunted house to clear it of any spirits. If he leaves, he goes back to prison, but the witch-ghost he encounters may be more of a punishment than even he can withstand. Exploring themes of grief, depression and isolation, director DW Medoff says, “Writing and directing this helped me deal with mental health issues, that suffering can spiral out of control. I made a horror movie, but it is also a warning: please ask for help when you need it”.
10.30pm HAPPY HALLOWEEN (UK Premiere)
Director: Brittney Greer. With: Emma Reinagel, Aline O’Neill, Graham Weldin, Cameron Mabie. USA 2024. 96 mins.
A small midwestern town is celebrating its 300th birthday with festivities including a Halloween dance and corn maze. The previous All Hallow’s Eve, Hadley Briggs survived a brutal attack by her ex-boyfriend which put him in prison. But now a new series of slayings has started with the masked perpetrator making grisly decorations out of their victims’ body parts. And soon Hadley and her friends find themselves ensnared in a deadly game with the mysterious maniac who haunts their every move, leaving a trail of terror in their wake. With heart-pounding suspense and bone-chilling thrills, a pulse-racing journey for survival.
FRIDAY 23 AUGUST 2024
1.10pm DRIVE BACK (UK Premiere)
Director: Cody Ashford. With: Whit Kunschik, Zack Gold, Robert Lewis Stephenson, Tammy Kaitz.. USA 2024. 94 mins.
Struggling artist, Reid, and his pregnant fiancée, Olivia, celebrate their new engagement, happily surrounded by family and friends. After a cryptic warning from Reid’s father, a car accident leaves them lost in the woods. Searching for directions leads to a rundown store, run by a creepy older couple, who suggest the best way home is by taking an old shortcut through dark backroads. But after violent visions, lost memories, a troubling hitchhiker encounter, and an inability to escape the road itself, their car breaks down and they discover a terrifying killer is hunting their every move.
3.45pm. SHORT FILM SHOWCASE 1 (line-up to be announced)
6.15pm DOCUMENTARY: SO UNREAL (European Premiere)
Director: Amanda Kramer. With: Debbie Harry. USA 2023. 98 mins.
A documentary exploration of tech-centric cinema including everything from THE MATRIX, TRON and TETSUO to STRANGE DAYS, BRAINSTORM and some you’ve never heard of. Narrated by pop culture icon Debbie (VIDEODROME) Harry, the film examines cinema as a conduit for humanity’s fear, anxiety, elation and obsession over the emerging technology at the end of the millennium. Computers, internet, cell phones, Wi-Fi, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, this in depth overview shows how the movies sometimes got it wrong, sometimes got it right; sometimes being early and sometimes late. A snapshot of movie history most of us have lived through.
8.45pm THE FREAKS OF FANCY (World Premiere)
Director: Elliott Léon. With: Rachel Brownstein, Gordon Lawson, Holly Lovelady, Matthew Jackman. UK 2024. 96 mins.
1927: Four medical graduates are invited to spend the weekend at a beautiful island mansion by their mentor, the experimental and controversial scientist Dr. Reed Wakefield. However, it soon becomes apparent that their stay was not planned for fun and games as Wakefield’s bold actions are about to unleash the most terrifying consequences. A psychological, gothic horror wrapped in a superbly constructed silent movie aesthetic and just like the brilliant Guy Maddin before him, director Elliott Léon’s adult fairytale blends absurdist satire, surreal gore, wrenching melodrama and the Charleston together to fashion an eerie work of nostalgia and expressionist symbolism.
11.00pm CURSED IN BAJA (World Premiere)
Director: Jeff Daniel Phillips. With: Jeff Daniel Phillips, Jose Conejo Martin, Finnegan Seeker Bell, Mark File. USA 2024. 80 mins.
Playing Herman Munster in Rob Zombie’s THE MUNSTERS reboot made it Jeff Daniel Phillips fifth collaboration with the rock horror legend. Now Daniels makes his feature debut as director also starring as Pirelli, a burnt out ex-detective, lured by the rich Los Angeles family responsible for his desperate plight to locate the missing heir to their fortune. But the young rapper is in Baja, Mexico, and a member of a Russian beast cult that worships the notorious Chupacabra. Pirelli must confront his own complicated past in the deadly search for what he finds in Baja challenges him to the core.
SATURDAY 24 AUGUST 2024
11.00am DELIRIUM (International Premiere)
Director: Arró Stefánsson. With: Hjörtur Jóhann Jónsson, Heiddis Chadwick Hlynsdottir, Jóhann Sigurðarson, Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson. Iceland 2023. 83 mins.
Debt-laden Ingi is doing everything he can to keep his family afloat. To make ends meet he rents out an apartment for tourists on the side. But after investigating complaints about a smell emanating from the Airbnb, he finds the decomposed corpse of a guest. Once the police leave Ingi trashes the man’s belongings and discovers a heavy antique metal box. Inside he finds some medieval coins, World War II memorabilia, photos and a tape recorder on which is recounted the misery of a curse that follows the box. And the haunting, hallucinations, insomnia and evil voices begin their torment…
1.15pm EVENT: FILM SUSSEX PANEL (To be announced)
3.30pm IN THE NAME OF GOD (European Premiere)
Director: Ludvig Gür. With: Linus Wahlgren, Lisa Henni, Vilhelm Blomgren,Thomas Hanzon. Sweden 2024. 89 mins.
Priest Theodor stands by in horror as his wife falls seriously ill. His world crumbling, he seeks guidance from his old mentor who convinces him he’s been chosen by God to rid the world of sinners in order to bring new life to true believers. With trembling hands, he commits his first murder, convinced he’s on a divine mission. Miraculously, at the moment of the murder, his wife’s health improves and the congregation starts referring to him as the “miracle priest”. But lurking in the shadows is a disbeliever who uncovers the bloody traces of the priest’s unholy deeds.
6.00pm DOCUMENTARY: BOUTIQUE: TO PRESERVE AND COLLECT (World Premiere)
Director: Ry Levey. With: Chris Alexander, David Gregory, Joe Rubin, Peter Kuplowsky. USA 2024. 75 mins.
An absorbing documentary on the history of physical media, the rise of boutique specialty collector labels and the role they have played in film restoration, preservation and elevation of underrepresented voices. From Something Weird to Severin and Vinegar Syndrome to Criterion, everything about the first bootleg videos minting amateur entrepreneurs, color correction secrets and the importance of commentaries and Extras to the collector market is explained by filmmakers, historians and label CEOs. Complemented by amazing clips from horror, grindhouse, erotic and cult titles, this lowdown on the business in protecting art in all its genre forms is a dazzling delight.
8.25pm VIDEO VISION (International Premiere)
Director: Michael Turney. With: Andrea Figliomeni, Chrystal Peterson, Shelley Valfer, Hunter Kohl. USA 2024. 83 mins.
When an old VCR mysteriously shows up at the digitising facility Video Vision, it starts affecting employee Kibby in many strange ways. Meanwhile, an unlikely romance with a trans man, Gator, has Kibby’s head in the clouds until she’s brought to her knees by the supernatural force that’s slowly taking control of her body and mind. When Kibby and Gator investigate the VCR’s origins they discover she has unwittingly unlocked the dark dimension of Dr. Analog. A smart, sassy and scary Retrotech romance that also riffs on every current issue on sexuality.
10.50pm FIRST BLOOD: THE MONSTER BENEATH US (World Premiere)
Director: Sophie Osbourne. With: Becca Hirani, Jack Forsyth-Noble, Nicola Wright, Jennifer Lim. UK 2024. 103 mins.
Windswept Yorkshire, 1898. A grieving woman and her son move back to the unoccupied house of her ex-husband who was recently found dead in mysterious circumstances. However they soon discover that they are not alone inside the icy house in a slow-burn horror exploring the themes of isolation, otherness and loss. For the house is home to a Boggart, an evil solitary supernatural spirit of English folklore, and each haunted character reacts to the malevolent hobgoblin in different ways. But whether befriending it, fighting it or ignoring it, a final showdown is inevitable in the conflict between fright and might.
SUNDAY 25 AUGUST 2024
11.05am DARK MATCH (International Premiere)
Director: Lowell Dean. With: Chris Jericho, Steve Ogg, Ayisha Issa, Michael Eklund. Canada 2024. 94 mins.
Chris Jericho, the current reigning FTW Champion of All Elite Wrestling, stars in the latest shocker from director Lowell Dean of WOLFCOP fame. Set in the 1980s, a small-time wrestling company looking for a massive payday accepts a huge fortune for a private gig in a backwoods town. What’s the catch? Too late they learn that the community is run by a mysterious cult leader with devious demonic plans for their grudge match. For when the lights go down, Prophet, Kate the Great, Miss Behave and crew are pitted against each other in a real fight for their lives.
1.30pm. SPONSOR PANEL (to be announced)
3.45pm CARA (World Premiere)
Director: Hayden Hewitt. With: Elle O’Hara, Michaela Longden, Donna Louise Bryan, Johnny Vivash. UK 2024. 96 mins.
A history of abuse, a roommate coming apart at the mental health seams, a failed career in online sexwork with dismissive viewers, a father incapable of communication and a well-meaning mother who reaches out but does nothing. Determined that she will not be sent back to an institution where she believes she was assaulted, Cara has a plan. One to ensure the doctors and her mother can’t put her back in the Sunnyside hospital. Enlisting the help of a subservient punter and a therapist, Cara sets the wheels in motion for her escape strategy, with brutal and horrific consequences.
6.15pm DERELICT (World Premiere)
Director: Jonathan Zaurin. With: Suzanne Fulton, Michael Coombes, Pete Bird, Dean Kilbey. UK 2024. 122 mins.
Abigail is a socially isolated, angry young woman who is struggling to come to terms with the savage death of her father some years prior. Matt is a young man whose life gets turned upside down by the return of his brother Ewan. The destinies of these lost souls cross in ways that will tragically shape their lives. A strong and compelling addition to the library of unflinching, harsh and tough British crime films in the Shane Meadows mode, DERELICT cements director Jonathan Zaurin as one of the most exciting voices working in UK genre cinema today.
9.15pm RETROSPECTIVE: RAZOR BLADE SMILE (World Premiere 4K Restoration)
Director Jake West. With: Eileen Daly, Christopher Adamson, Kevin Howarth, David Warbeck. UK 1998. 102 mins.
Transformed into a vampire in the 19th century, Lilith Silver now acts as a hired killer in modern times. When she targets elite businessmen, ‘The Illuminati’, who secretly are taking over corporations and the government, Scotland Yard detective Inspector Price starts investigating. Then Lilith discovers the head of ‘The Illuminati’ is none other than Sir Sethane Blake, the undead creature who first gave her immortality and her revenge motives move into the highest, bloodiest gear. FrightFest is delighted to world premiere the 4K restoration of alumni Jake West’s feature debut prior to its release by Severin Films.
MONDAY 26 AUGUST 2024
11.00am SCHLITTER: EVIL IN THE WOODS (UK Premiere)
Director: Pierre Mouchet. With: Luka Meliava, Léna Laprès, Gilles David Gilles David, Côme Levin. France 2023. 70 mins.
The title translates as Slider… you’ll see why! Lucas returns to his native village lost in the mountains to bury his parents who have tragically died in a mysterious fire. Traumatised by his abusive father as a child, he also witnessed the death of his best friend when he was eight-years-old. But he has never told anyone the truth about what really happened. However, the still-grieving father of his friend has never been able to get over his loss. Someone is responsible, he needs revenge and Lucas just so happens to be in the vicinity.
1.00pm FRIGHT (World Premiere)
Director: Warren Dudley. With: Gwyneth Evans, Jill Priest, Daniel Tuite, UK 2024. 81 mins.
1937: Young Emily is trapped in a nightmare, chronic agoraphobia and a strange, domineering mother have turned their sprawling gothic mansion into a prison. On the brink of madness, Emily is haunted by lurking malevolent forces, her only hope, the desperate belief her missing father could save her from this living hell. But as she longs for his return Emily is tormented by visions of a sinister, gnarled black hand—a specter haunting her earliest memories. An homage to the unsettling atmosphere of 1950s horror cinema, echoing the terror of THE HAUNTING and the ghostly dread of THE INNOCENTS.
3.15pm DOCUMENTARY: GENERATION TERROR (World Premiere)
Directors: Phillip Escott, Sarah Appleton. With: Adam Wingard, James Wong, Joe Lynch, Rob Zombie. UK 2024. 91 mins
Horror bleeds into the 21st Century in an incisive documentary looking back at the late 1990s film industry on a global scale to find out what happened at the turn of the millennium to allow for the huge wealth of horror films flooding out from all corners of the globe. From SCREAM (1996), THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) and FINAL DESTINATION (2000), to WRONG TURN (2003), HOSTEL (2005) and SAW (2004), with insight from Joe Lynch, Xavier Gens and Bill Malone who track the technology, the industry and the societal changes behind the next generation of horror films.