This year’s Pigeon Shrine FrightFest is just a few short days away. The festival will once more take over Cineworld Leicester Square for five days of movies embracing the dark heart of cinema. The event has already sold out weekend and day passes, though single tickets remain available for many of the films that are screening. As always there is a wide and varied amount of films being presented, meaning whatever your horror itch, it is still likely that there will be a movie for you.
This weekend, on Saturday 19th August, weekend passholders have the arduous task of selecting what films will form their festival of frights as Discovery Screen tickets become available. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of titles that we’ve been lucky enough to see already and highly recommend.
Suitable Flesh
Having debuted Joe Lynch’s Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, and Mayhem, it wouldn’t be FrightFest if they didn’t host his latest horror offering, Suitable Flesh. Starring two other familiar FrightFest faces – Barbara Crampton and Graham Skipper – Suitable Flesh is dedicated to the late Stuart Gordon. Featuring Heather Graham in a stunning lead performance, Suitable Flesh joins a psychiatrist whose life is irrevocably changed after meeting her latest patient (played by a mesmerising Judah Lewis). The story itself is a modern adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s short story ‘The Thing on the Doorstep’, but one with a distinct Joe Lynch spin. Suitable Flesh opens this year’s festivities and is sure to raise the roof and place the audience in the perfect frame of mind for the horrors of the rest of the weekend.
Where the Devil Roams
Whilst many families can barely get through a dinner without bickering, the Adams Family continue to collaborate on making movies. The team of Zelda Adams, John Adams, and Toby Poser have proven themselves to be a force to be reckoned with since their one, two double whammy of the excellent The Deeper You Dig and Hellbender. Their latest project, Where the Devil Roams, is set to make it three in a row. Very different to what viewers have seen from the team before, Where the Devil Roams travels back in time and finds the trio playing a family of carnival folks. As the trade for the carnival starts to dry up, the family’s matriarch (Poser) goes to extreme lengths to keep the family and their community in business.
Where the Devil Roams captures the intimate spirit of all the Adams’ projects, but this time expands the character pool outward to one of their biggest casts yet. The trio also dabble with gore and practical effects, creating some stomach-churning moments and brain searing visuals. Add to that a return for their band H6llb6nd6r on soundtrack duties, and you have all the ingredients for a wild and wicked time.
What You Wish For
Featuring a stellar performance from Nick Stahl, What You Wish For is, well, everything you could wish for from an independent thriller. Directed by Nicholas Tomnay, in What You Wish For Nick Stahl stars as Ryan, a chef in debt and on the run. Linking up with a friend from culinary school, Ryan finds himself biting off more than he can chew when he cheats his way into catering a private dinner party. A film best entered into with the most basic of intel, What You Wish For has plenty of tantalising treats for those that decide to give it a nibble.
The Weird Kidz
FrightFest covers the dark heart of cinema across all sub-genres and visual formats, making Zach Passero’s The Weird Kidz an excellent addition. If Passero’s name sounds familiar, it is because he is a frequent collaborator of director Lucky Mckee having worked on May, The Woman, and Old Man to name just a few. Now Passero takes centre stage as he directs and draws his sci-fi horror animation The Weird Kidz. Set over the course of one fateful night during the bygone era of yesteryear, The Weird Kidz pits teenagers against desert monsters in this very adult cartoon. The Weird Kidz captures the spirit of live-action institutions Stand By Me and The Goonies, mixes them with the charms of early sci-fi B-movies and filters them through Rick and Morty and South Park humour. The result is a film that will make you laugh, but also care. A fantastic coming-of-age sci-fi story, this animation is one that attendees should really take a chance on.
First Blood Strand
Each year FrightFest carves time out of their Saturday schedule to devote time to the First Blood strand. This selection of films are especially curated to celebrate some of the best new voices in horror. There are always several highlights within each year’s line-up, but the 2023 strand is especially strong. We at THN are so impressed with what the First Blood programming has to offer this year that we think a decamp to Discovery Screen One for a day would be an excellent decision.
The strand begins with Chris Cronin’s The Moor. Set on and around the Yorkshire Moors, The Moor is a spooky and atmospheric tale of grief and ghosts. Mixing elements of true crime to enrich the story, The Moor joins Claire (Sophia La Porta) as she is asked to visit the moors by Bill (David Edwards-Robertson), the father of her deceased childhood friend. His mission is simple – find his child’s remains, but what happens on the moors is anything but ordinary. Featuring some of the best cinematography at FrightFest this year, The Moor deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
First Blood continues with Tariq Sayed’s Isaac, a taut science-fiction horror drama starring Johnny Vivash as a very desperate father. Having lost one child to a genetic defect that his own genealogy passed along, Nick (Vivash) signs up for a scientific experiment that claims to be able to grow him a child free of these issues. As his son, Isaac, begins to mature, problems arise, but Nick will go to extreme lengths to keep him safe. A wonderful spin on the hysterical mother, Isaac also presents plenty of food for thought with its near-future viability. Isaac also works as a great companion to the recent Channel 4 documentary Greg Wallace: The British Miracle Meat; if you were a fan of that, then Isaac might just be for you.
The penultimate film of the First Blood line-up is Ireland-set found-footage chiller The Glenarma Tapes. Directed by Tony Devlin, The Glenarma Tapes recounts the events that led to the disappearance of five students and two teachers in March 2020. Devlin’s film hits several expected found-footage tropes, but more interestingly it subverts and innovates the sub-genre with some very clever ideas. For example, the lead character is particularly well drawn, and The Glenarma Tapes has answers for all the typical found-footage gripes. It is one of the only a few found-footage films on this year’s festival line-up making it a must-see for those that like their horror with a hint of realism.
Finally, the First Blood screen will close out with Dominic O’Neill’s Haunted Ulster Live. Channelling and homaging the British scare phenomenon Ghostwatch, O’Neill puts an Irish spin on the idea. Haunted Ulster Live screens the ‘original’ broadcast of the show from Saturday 31st October 1998. Michael Parkinson, Sarah Green, and Craig Charles are replaced with hosts Gerry Burns (Mark Claney), DJ Declan (Dan Leith), and fellow presenter Michelle Kelly (Aimee Richardson). The show focuses on the McKillen family and features all manner of ghostly investigations and spooky happenings. Imitation is said to be the greatest form of flattery and in Haunted Ulster Live, Ghostwatch has got a very heart-eyed emoji-ed fan. With a lovely tongue-in-cheek nature, Haunted Ulster Live is perfect for easy late-night viewing.
Cobweb Closed Caption Screening
Directed by Samuel Bodin and starring Lizzy Caplan and Anthony Starr, Cobweb pits child against parent with horrifying results. Horror strikes when Peter (Woody Norman) tries to investigate the mysterious knocking noises that are coming from inside the walls of his house and a dark secret that his sinister parents kept hidden from him.
In a first for FrightFest, on Saturday the team will screen Cobweb both in the main screen and in Discovery Screen 3, with one key difference. The screening in Discovery Screen 3 will be played with closed captions for those who are hard of hearing. It’s an excellent initiative that opens the festival up to being inclusive to all horror fans. If this screening proves popular then hopefully, just as with the First Blood films, future editions could feature a strand dedicated to those with accessibility needs. Afterall, no one should be denied their slice of horror.
Hostile Dimensions
In 2019, Graham Hughes’ Death of a Vlogger screened as part of FrightFest’s First Blood strand. The film was a resounding success and now regularly features on lists exploring the best modern found-footage stories. Now the Scottish writer and director has returned to FrightFest with his follow-up, Hostile Dimensions. Hughes sticks with the same back to basics approach he utilised so effortlessly in Death of a Vlogger to tell a head-scratching and fascinating tale of the multiverse.
Documentarians and friends Ash (Joma West) and Sam (Annabel Logan) get mixed up with a door that leads to other dimensions when they embark on a case looking into the disappearance of a young woman. As their investigation progresses, they find themselves stepping through the door and into a multiverse of nightmares. Featuring some solid standout scares, Hostile Dimensions is set to be another hit for Graham Hughes. Get in early doors on this very exciting science-fiction indie.
Transmission
Although all his filmmaker friends, Johannes Roberts, Ben Wheatley, and Howard J. Ford have screened films at FrightFest, director Michael Hurst has always been watching on from afar. This year though that changes as he brings his experimental horror, Transmission, to the main screen. Thought to be the first channel-surfing horror film, Transmission takes place in the dead of night via a variety of shows. The audience are placed into the role of the fictional viewer and watch as an invisible hand flicks between their TV’s late-night offerings. What first seems like scattered flicking through unconnected programmes, gradually starts to sync up, creating a very intriguing bigger picture. One for the long-serving FrightFest attendees who think they’ve seen everything, Transmission is an exciting venture into unknown territory.
Sympathy for the Devil
Do we really need to say anything other than Nicolas Cage to get people to see Sympathy for the Devil? Well it also stars Joel Kinnaman and the pairing of him and Cage on screen is electric. The story sees Kinnaman’s David taken hostage by Cage’s enigmatic stranger. As the pair drive around the night roads of Las Vegas, Cage’s nameless man becomes more and more unhinged. David must resort to desperate measures to try and survive the night. Cage gives a terrific performance and has been completely let off his leash by director Yuval Adler, creating yet another iconic performance for the actor. With echoes of Collateral and The Hitcher, and a zany turn from Cage, Sympathy for the Devil provides plenty of star-power to this year’s FrightFest. Quite how Sympathy for the Devil is screening on Discovery Screen 1 is almost as compelling a mystery as that posed in the film itself, but it’s safe to say that a gamble on Cage is never a disappointment.
Good Boy
Written and directed by Viljar Bøe, Good Boy is a twisted romance that pushes the viewer to the brink of insanity. Young student Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen) meets multi-millionaire heir Christian (Gard Løkke) on a dating app. They immediately hit it off, but there is one big problem – Christian lives with Frank (Nicolai Narvesen), a man who dresses up and acts like a dog.
Good Boy is easily one of the most talked about and highly anticipated films at this year’s FrightFest. That it is screening in Discovery Screen 2 is a little sad as it would go down impeccably on the Main Screen. Unfortunately, we at THN have no control over the scheduling, though we will say that if you manage to get a ticket for Good Boy, you are in for the cinematic journey of your life.
Pigeon Shrine FrightFest runs from Thursday 24th August to Monday 27th August.
