Dubbed “the Woodstock of Gore” by none other than Guillermo Del Toro, FrightFest is back for 2023 and with it comes some truly gruesome, frightening and downright wrong (in a good way) horror movies for audiences to enjoy.
The horror film festival returns to Cineworld Leicester Square, London, for its 24th edition, and this year it has partnered with pioneering technology & entertainment company Pigeon Shrine.
Not only that but SciFiNow will also be partnering with the event again for 2023, so keep an eye out here for all your Pigeon Shrine FrightFest news, reviews and events and keep an eye out at the festival for some frightening gorgeous SciFiNow free goodies.
Running from Thursday August 24 – Monday 28 August 2023, Pigeon Shrine FrightFest will have feature-length and short films, as well as documentaries, and will encompass 25 World, 23 International / European and 12 UK premieres, with 14 countries represented, spanning five continents.
“FrightFesters will experience an amazing variety of films, in an eclectic line-up which serves as a powerful tool of democracy, activism, diversity, inclusivity and social awareness,” says co-director Alan Jones. “As always, FrightFest is keen to show, through an open-minded philosophy, that the most unexpected and delightful discoveries happen when wide-ranging topics, different people and varied cultures come together in horror harmony.”
The full line-up for the festival has now been announced and will open with the European premiere of Suitable Flesh from director Joe Lynch, which we called a “lovingly batshit resurrection of Stuart Gordon’s Lovecraftian spirit” in our four-star review (which you can read here). Not only that but Suitable Flesh co-star and co-producer (and genre legend) Barbara Crampton, will be attending the festival too!
The closing night film for Pigeon Shrine FrightFest is the European premiere of The Sacrifice Game, director Jenn Wexler’s second feature, which is a tribute to classic 1970’s horror and stars Olivia Scott Welch.
There are plenty more besides, including Where The Devil Roams, the latest from the brilliant Adams Family (The Deeper You Dig), which follows a family of murderous sideshow performers, and the filmmakers will be attending the festival too.
Other main screen titles include Paris Zarcilla’s breakout sensation Raging Grace, Bishal Dutta‘s impressive directorial debut It Lives Inside (watch the trailer below), Anthony Waller’s supernatural chiller Piper, starring Elizabeth Hurley, underwater frightener The Dive, Quarxx’s relentlessly macabre Pandemonium, and Samuel Bodin’s ghostly gripper Cobweb (which you can find more about here).
There are also a couple of sci-fi gems at the festival too, including Mark Vesely’s darkly claustrophobic sci-fi chiller Monolith, which stars Evil Dead Rise’s Lily Sullivan, and Michael J. Hurst’s wild science fiction shocker Transmission, the world’s first channel-surfing horror film…
Over on the Discovery screens, there will be a modern reimagining of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, with the world premiere of Doctor Jekyll starring Eddie Izzard.
There’s also the UK Premiere of River, a quirky new fantasy from director Junta Yamaguchi (The Infinite Two Minutes), and T Blockers, an Australian trans horror film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Alice Maio Mackay.
For that much-needed dose of nostalgia, the festival will also be hosting a special retrospective screening of Lewis Teague’s 1980 cult monster movie Aligator, and an exclusive It Follows 4K Restoration World Premiere event.
That’s not all, FrightFest has teamed up with Warner Bros to celebrate James Wan’s The Conjuring turning ten this year and will showcase it as they did back in 2013’s special FrightFest screening. It’s also the 50th Anniversary of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and the festival will have an exclusive presentation of ‘The Version You Never Saw’, hosted by Mark Kermode.
Find the full line-up for the 2023 Pigeon Shrine FrightFest click here and keep it at SciFiNow for reviews, news and our top picks…
