From October 24th to 28th, the Irish Film Institute (IFI) will run its annual Horrorthon. A great chance for horror aficionados to get in the mood for Halloween, this year’s Horrorthon features over 30 screenings, offering a myriad of opportunities to scare the life out of ourselves.
The five-day event is set to include a diverse range of some of the best new horror feature films to appear on the international festival circuit, as well as a short film showcase. This year’s festival is the most international to date, with offerings by filmmakers from Venezuela, Russia, Israel, Thailand, Denmark and Kazakhstan all included in the programme.
The festival will open with the Irish premiere of Abe Forsythe’s zom-com Little Monsters, which stars Oscar-winner Lupito Nyong’o as a kindergarten teacher who must protect her students in the wake of a sudden zombie outbreak. This event will be preceded by a 70mm screening of James Quinn’s new short Daughter of Dismay.
October 26th will feature Colour Out of Space, Richard Stanley’s long-awaited directorial follow-up to Dust Devil. The film stars Nicholas Cage in H P Lovecraft’s tale about the catastrophic aftermath in a town that is struck by a meteorite.
One of the festival’s international highlights is the South Korean action thriller The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil. The film is directed by Won-Tae Lee and follows a gangster and a policeman who team up in order to track down a serial killer.
Irish filmmaking is well represented: Paddy Murphy’s The Perished will debut at the festival and Zoe Kavanagh’s short film Meat Cute, (written by Irish Times critic Tara Brady) is also featured. The festival’s closing film, Come to Daddy, features many contributions by Irish artists. The film was shot by Irish-born cinematographer Daniel Katz and features Belfast-born Michael Smiley alongside Elijah Wood and Martin Donovan.
For those interested in the stories behind the screams, the festival features multiple documentaries that explore the world of horror filmmaking. These include Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, which investigates how A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge became part of the LGBT canon and the effect this had on the career of its star, Mark Patton. Other documentaries include Blood and Flesh: The Reel Life and Grizzly Death of Al Adamson, which looks at the cult figure and B-movie maverick.
Other festival highlights include Helen Hunt in I See You, Travis Stevens’s Girl on the Third Floor and, one of the festival’s most anticipated screenings, the Horrorthon Surprise Screening.
All individual tickets to Horrorthon films cost €11.50, except for the opening screening of Little Monsters, for which tickets cost €15 and include a complimentary beer or drink. Individual tickets can be purchased online or at the cinema’s box office.
