Whilst the films selected for the main screen programming at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest steal most people’s attention, for THN it is the films screened in the Discovery Screen that tend to capture our fascination. More specifically, it is each year’s selection of First Blood titles that gets us most excited. This small collection of five-six titles is carefully curated by FrightFest director Ian Rattray, to highlight some of the freshest new voices working within UK genre cinema. Every year there are several that capture attendees attention, with Aled Owen’s Scopophobia one of the more popular of 2024’s titles.
Scopophobia: The extreme, irrational fear of being looked at. Four girls return home to a ghost town, but find themselves being followed. Is it 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 trench coat.
Filmed in Wales, Scopophobia had a long journey from script to screen, and after several years in the making, the team turned out in force at FrightFest to support the film. Shortly after the world premiere at FrightFest, writer and director Aled Owen arrived on the media wall for interviews. He was joined by all four of his leading actresses – Catrin Jones, Bethany Williams-Potter, Emma Stacey, and Ellen-Jane Thomas. Speaking just after the film’s debut, everyone was in high spirits as we discussed the film’s painstaking production process and exactly what the FrightFest fans thought of Scopophobia.
Scopophobia screened at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest. Further screenings of Scopophobia are to be announced and THN will update as we get news of them.
