Five days, dozens of films, one final Tony Todd performance, one hangover.
FrightFest 2026 marked the twenty seventh year of the world’s biggest horror film festival, and Ginger Nuts of Horror was back at the Odeon Luxe in Leicester Square for the full five days. This FrightFest 2026 reviews report runs through every film, documentary and panel on this year’s FrightFest 2026 lineup, from the opening night jitters of Nervous to the giallo soaked body horror of Species on closing night. Along the way there is Yeon Sang-ho’s evolving infected in Colony, Andy Nyman battling arachnids in Spider Island, and The Fright Stuff documentary, a genuinely moving look at the world of haunted house attractions.
There is also Tony Todd’s final screen performance in The Pitchfork Retreat, a documentary on Full Moon Pictures founder Charles Band, and the usual FrightFest chaos of the Duke Mitchell Film Club and four packed short film showcases. Not everything landed.
Written up day by day by David Court and Tara Court, this is a personal, opinionated walk through five days of screenings, panels and pub quizzes in London’s West End, rating the highs, the lows and everything shambling along in between.
Five days, dozens of films and Tony Todd’s final performance: our report from the twenty seventh FrightFest finds this year’s horror crop as wildly inconsistent as ever
SCARES IN THE SQUARE – FRIGHTFEST 2026
The weekend before the August Bank Holiday sees the same familiar sight descend upon London’s West End. Menace (and Lynx Africa) fills the air, while the area outside Leicester Square’s ODEON Luxe becomes a morass of black T-shirts emblazoned with the titles of horror films. 2026 marks the 27th year of arguably the biggest horror film festival in the world, and the sixth for my wife and me – as well as our sixth such write-up for Ginger Nuts of Horror – with reviews by David Court (DC) and Tara Court (TC).
It’s a highlight of our calendar, and these days it’s as much about the people as it is the films. Because a festival ticket buys you a specific seat in the main screen, it pays to introduce yourself to the people you’ll be sitting next to throughout the festival. Friendships are born and grow over subsequent years, and it’s a great opportunity to catch up over a beer with the fantastic friends we’ve made through the festival. It’s as much fun slagging off a terrible film that we’ve all just been subjected to as it is singing the praises of a surprise highlight.
Accompanied by FrightFest stalwart Johnny Vivash (making his FrightFest main-screen debut this year in Dead Reset, albeit as a corpse), we headed into the regular Wednesday-night quiz in the bowels of the Phoenix Arts Club with a certain degree of enthusiasm and confidence. Both dwindled rapidly as the questions – and the beer – flowed.
One particularly fiendish round involved identifying two films from clips of their soundtracks playing simultaneously. It was particularly cruel of the organisers to have one answer be Suspiria (1977) and Suspiria (2018). Still, coming seventh out of nineteen teams was a pretty decent result.
Thursday’s events started on the afternoon, with a panel being held in the recesses of the Phoenix Arts Club – It’s about Bloody Time from Yes She Cannes, a showcase of forthcoming horror movies created by women. This was a brilliantly inspirational event, and was very well attended – and a great start to the festival.
The films part of the festival began properly on Thursday evening, with a packed house for the opening movie. As the organist vanished beneath the stage to the strains of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” from An American Werewolf in London (no, really), the festival kicked off in suitably strange fashion with Nervous (DC)
Thursday at FrightFest 2026
Nervous Review
FrightFest opening films have been something of a mixed bag, although they’ve been on an upward trajectory since our first attendance in 2021. That year opened with Blomkamp’s risible Demonic, followed by Marshall’s mediocre Lair in 2022, Suitable Flesh in 2023, and then the thoroughly decent Broken Bird and The Home (flawed but fun) in the two years since.
After a false start – the first screening began without subtitles and had to be restarted a few minutes in – Nervous finally got underway.
The film opens with an aerial shot of a car driving through South Korea, one of several examples of something we noticed throughout this year’s FrightFest: yes, we get it, you’ve got a drone, guys. Not every shot needs to be a bird’s-eye view.
Sungsoo is taking his blindfolded wife, Sarah, on a surprise trip to their new house. It’s immediately clear that this is a surprise she’s not particularly enamoured with. She hasn’t been consulted, her own wishes have been ignored, and things don’t improve when they arrive to discover that the furniture hasn’t even been delivered.
Just as Sarah is beginning to get used to her new surroundings, Sungsoo ignores one of the most valuable lessons taught to us by practically every incarnation of Evil Dead: don’t play the creepy recordings. Naturally, he can’t resist trying out a mysterious record player he discovers in the attic.
As the days go on, Sarah starts experiencing hearing difficulties that doctors struggle to identify the cause of – but it transpires that it’s only the voices of men that have become muffled and inaudible. One character even jokes how lucky she is, but of course there are more sinister things afoot – especially with the appearance of a mysterious attractive neighbour.
Nervous is an odd one. It’s beautifully shot, with excellent performances from its two leads, but overall, it’s a decidedly average film that comes frustratingly close to greatness.
A subplot involving a mysterious woman lurking around the house is never explored in any meaningful detail, while the central premise – however intriguing – is never really given enough room to breathe. There’s a genuinely interesting film buried in here, but it feels as though it’s constantly being held at arm’s length.
For a film whose beating heart is sound – or, more accurately, the absence of it – the sound design is excellent. There’s something rather grotty, however, about a film that appears to have a strong feminist message while simultaneously taking such obvious delight in ogling Sarah’s breasts and cleavage. In one shot of her descending the stairs, the camera is so fixated on her chest that it barely registers the fact that she has a head, let alone a face.
A promising opening to the festival, then, but one that ultimately left us wishing the film had been braver, stranger and a little more willing to explore its own ideas. (DC)
Rating: 6 / 10
Slay Review
Not to be confused with Slay (2024), this Kyra Simpson (Living with Chucky)-directed film is a lot of fun. Starring Zoey Luna, Aya Cash and Sean Giambrone (Adam in The Goldbergs), it’s a fun romp through a slasher flick with other themes thrown into the mix.
Rather than a cameo from horror scream queen Shawnee Smith, she has a detailed, if small, role. Slay shows us what it’s like to be an influencer heading to a cabin in the woods and documenting what’s going on with your alleged friend group.
Beck Nolan is a standout performer, and this was his first film after graduating from film school. (TC)
Rating: 8 / 10
Colony Review
The Poster for Colony
Director Yeon Sang-ho proved his knack for putting a fresh spin on the zombie genre with 2016’s Train to Busan, and he treads similarly familiar territory here with Colony. It’s a film that wastes little time introducing its characters, each initially feeling more like an archetype than a fully rounded personality – but they’re all going to be torn to shreds anyway, so perhaps that’s beside the point, eh?
Professor Kwon Se-jeong arrives at a presentation for a bio-engineering company, accompanied by her ex-husband, Han Gyu-sung. Unfortunately for them, evil scientist Seo Young-chul has chosen precisely that moment to launch a bioterrorist attack on the building.
Chaos, naturally, ensues. Our two leads, along with a host of other unfortunate bystanders who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, must fight for survival as the building is placed under quarantine. It’s hardly the most original premise, but Yeon Sang-ho throws enough interesting ideas into the mix to make Colony stand out from the shambling horde of undead cinema.
The protagonists aren’t, strictly speaking, dealing with zombies. The “infected” have a particularly nasty trick up their sleeves, and one that develops throughout the film: they evolve.
Purists may sneer at the familiar return of the fast-moving zombie, but there’s a certain panache to the way these creatures are unleashed. Like God, they move in mysterious ways, contorting themselves into increasingly grotesque shapes and twisting their limbs in ways that appear to defy both logic and basic biology. They’re singularly terrifying: a rapidly moving mass of teeth and limbs that sweeps through hapless victims like a force of nature, becoming stronger and more dangerous as it feeds.
The evil professor is another delight, relishing the heroes’ predicament with the moustache-twirling enthusiasm of a classic matinee villain. There’s perhaps a little too much running down corridors and between rooms, while some of the more intriguing developments in the infected are introduced only to be quietly abandoned. Nevertheless, Colony remains a violent tour-de-force that delivers plenty of visceral entertainment.
It ultimately proved to be one of the highlights of this year’s FrightFest for me, made even more enjoyable by experiencing it alongside a huge, bloodthirsty crowd. If only they’d opened the festival with it! (DC)
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Big Baby Review: FrightFest 2026
A nice surprise. What initially looked like a standard Midnight Movie synopsis to round off Thursday night – “serial killer in a baby mask terrorises hapless victims” – turned out to be considerably more cerebral than that lurid premise suggested.
Produced by Cher and directed by Spider One (brother of Rob Zombie), I’ll admit I feared the worst, particularly when I discovered that his wife, Krsy Fox, was also involved. Happily, my preconceptions were misplaced: Spider One proves a considerably more assured director than his sibling, while Fox is a far more convincing actor than Sheri Moon Zombie. (Apologies to Zombie – I like the music, but his films have never really been my thing.)
The film centres on Adam, a horror screenwriter suffering a crisis of confidence. Matters aren’t helped by a particularly vicious podcast takedown of his latest film – one he can’t resist listening to, despite knowing full well that it’s going to ruin his day. With inspiration in short supply, salvation arrives in the form of a nightmare about the titular newborn serial killer. Adam decides that, actually, he’s more than capable of writing a slasher – an elevated one, naturally – and begins work on the script.
Things take a considerably darker turn when fiction starts bleeding into reality. Adam witnesses his imaginary protagonist apparently killing for real, forcing him to confront an increasingly disturbing possibility: are the victims he’s creating on the page merely fictional characters, or are their lives somehow in his hands?
There’s a pleasingly self-aware strain of meta-horror running through the film, recalling Stephen King’s The Dark Half, while also touching on the more knowing, writer-as-monster territory explored by films such as In the Mouth of Madness.
The two leads are excellent throughout. Brandon Scott plays Adam as a man teetering precariously on the edge of sanity, throwing himself into the increasingly deranged material with impressive gusto, while Fox is equally compelling as his long-suffering partner, providing the film with a welcome emotional anchor as everything around them begins to unravel.
The result is a very watchable piece of meta-horror that initially appears to be a straightforward slasher before revealing considerably more going on beneath the blood and baby mask. And while the ending is every bit as interesting as it is a head-scratcher, it’s the sort of ambiguity that gives you something to chew over rather than simply leaving you feeling cheated.
A much smarter film than its premise initially suggests – and a rather nice surprise for a Thursday night (with a lovely cameo from Terrifier’s David Howard Thornton). (DC)
Rating: 7 / 10
Friday at FrightFest 2026
Rubberhead: The Life and Monsters of Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson, who was married to Linnea Quigley for a time (and how can you fumble her?!), is the subject of this documentary, which explores the ups and downs of his career.
From creating some of cinema’s most iconic effects (Slimer and the aliens in The Abyss, anyone?), the documentary shows both the highs — quite literally — and the lows. Addiction overtook Johnson, causing him to lose out on work, and with the invention of CGI, he found himself losing a game he simply couldn’t win.
He is still working and fighting addiction every day, but this was one of the most inspiring documentaries I’ve seen in a long time (TC)
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Imposters Review: FrightFest 2026
There have been a raft of folk horror films centred around the loss of a child and the desperate attempt to replace them with something different – Wake Wood, The Hallow and Starve Acre, to name just a few – so, judging by the premise, I was expecting something along similar lines here. Thankfully, what unfolds is considerably stranger and far less predictable.
Jessica Rothe, best known for the frenetic comedy-horror of Happy Death Day and its sanity-stretching sequel, gives a sterling performance as Marie, a new mother whose world is turned upside down following the disappearance of her newborn son. Charlie Barnett plays her husband Paul, delivering what is perhaps one of the most subtly despicable characters of the week. The couple are newcomers to the town, hoping to settle into their new surroundings, but their attempts to make a good impression quickly unravel when their baby goes missing during a party intended to introduce themselves to the neighbourhood.
A frenzied opening sequence introduces us to Orson, the town’s resident weirdo loner – the sort of character who, in a lesser film, would almost immediately be signposted as the villain. As a youngster, Orson is involved in a bizarre and unsettling encounter with his parents, involving a branding iron, which provides an early glimpse into the darkness lurking beneath the surface of this seemingly ordinary community.
As the story develops, we learn that Orson has a lifelong familiarity with the town and, more importantly, knowledge of a mysterious cave on its outskirts. He believes that this place may offer Marie and Paul a chance to get their missing son back. What follows takes the film in a far more nihilistic and twisted direction than the initial folk-horror setup might suggest.
Rather than leaning heavily into traditional folk horror, the film increasingly feels like a nightmarish reality-bending thriller, with more in common with Timecrimes than Pet Semetary. The result is an unsettling, increasingly unpredictable experience that continually pulls the rug out from underneath the viewer. Just when you think you have worked out where the story is heading, it takes another sharp turn.
The performances are strong across the board, but it is the film’s willingness to embrace its darker, more nihilistic ideas that really sets it apart. It was easily one of the highlights of this year’s FrightFest for me, and the ending is the kind that will linger in the mind long after the credits have rolled. (DC)
Rating: 8 / 10
Frostbite Review: FrightFest 2026
Every FrightFest seems to have its stinker – the one film that our group unanimously agrees just doesn’t work – and sadly this year that honour fell to Frostbite. On paper, it sounds promising enough: a disaster movie about a group of people trapped in a downed cable car beneath an avalanche, fighting for survival.
The problem is that a good disaster film needs characters you care about, and Frostbite struggles to provide them. One character is clearly intended to be obnoxious, but he’s so exaggerated that he feels more like a caricature than a real person – pantomimic, even. After a disaster, you’d probably be hoping he was the first to volunteer for a trip outside. If he didn’t, I’d volunteer him.
The cable car itself also seems to change shape and size whenever the plot requires it, and there’s never much sense of real danger. The lead actress gives an enjoyable performance, but she isn’t given enough to work with to elevate the otherwise forgettable supporting cast.
Then, rather unexpectedly, the film spends its final twenty minutes turning into The Descent, abandoning the cable car setting altogether. (“You mean you could have got out of the cable car at any point?” “No, only when it was dramatically appropriate.”)
The final line of dialogue prompted laughter from much of the audience – not because it was intentionally funny, but because it felt so wildly unrealistic. Frostbite is certainly preposterous, but its bigger problem is that, despite its premise, it never becomes especially exciting. (DC)
Rating: 3 / 10
Ponderosa Review
Despite the name, FrightFest isn’t all about the horror. It’s an excellent showcase for unusual genre pieces whose subject matter – or just plain oddness – might otherwise struggle to find an audience or a home, and Ponderosa is one such film. There have been some excellent examples of this in the past – Dead Letter and Bookworm from 2024 were rare gems, the former a decidedly weird thriller about a synthesizer enthusiast turned kidnapper, the latter a wonderfully quirky kids’ movie.
Opening with a beautiful shot of a stationary car against an ever-changing backdrop, Ponderosa – named after the buffet restaurant chain of the same name that features heavily in the film – is a Lynchian love letter to the suburban sprawl of America and the people who inhabit it. Zeke is an anonymous, aimless twentysomething living in an equally anonymous, drab town, still at home with his mother. When Elder George drifts into his life, what initially appears to be an innocent attempt to become the father figure Zeke never had soon takes on a vaguely sinister tone. Is George hopelessly naïve and, frankly, just plain odd, or is there something more predatory at work?
Writer-director Rob Rice casts a magical spell with this wonderful tableau of America’s stranger spaces, a world where adults hold endless barbeques putting the world to rights over a beer whilst feral boys exercise in rooms adjacent. Each beautifully framed shot offers another glimpse into this weird and dreamlike world, all watched over by the town’s blood-red water tower. Every scene feels like a set-piece, artificial somehow, yet never anything less than captivating.
It’s a difficult one to define – I’m still not entirely sure what I saw – but I was never bored, and it thoroughly held my attention throughout. I said beforehand that I’d struggle to give this one a score, but having dwelled on it (and dwelled and dwelled and dwelled some more), a verdict has finally been decided upon. 😊 (DC)
Rating: 8 / 10
The Pitchfork Retreat Review
Regular readers of our FrightFest write-ups will know that I’m a sucker for a good anthology movie, so hopes were high for Pitchfork. The premise certainly sounds promising: three horror writers arrive at a mysterious retreat in search of inspiration, only to discover that the trip is less about finding something to write about and more about confronting the things they’ve been trying to bury. Their stay will ultimately culminate in a high-stakes writing competition, with each of them forced to dig deep, tap into their inner turmoil and confront their own particular demons.
Presiding over proceedings is Tony Todd – in what turns out to be his final role, and yet another reminder of just how thoroughly excellent he was in everything. There’s an appropriately imposing quality to his presence here, and he brings the sort of gravitas to proceedings that makes the increasingly strange events feel suitably ominous. It’s a fitting appearance from an actor who could make even the most outlandish horror premise feel like something worth taking seriously.
The vast majority of horror anthologies tend to follow a familiar structure, with a wrap-around story providing the connective tissue between a series of individual segments. Pitchfork tries something a little different. Rather than splitting its time evenly between the central narrative and the stories-within-the-story, it places much more weight on the wrap-around, with the individual segments appearing as each writer’s contribution to the competition.
It’s a subtle shift, but one that works surprisingly well. The three stories themselves make for a solid enough bunch, each offering its own take on the characters’ respective fears and obsessions, while the framing narrative gives everything a little more cohesion than you might expect from this sort of format. It also means that the anthology elements feel like a natural part of the story rather than simply being inserted because, well, this is an anthology and we’re due another segment.
There’s no denying that Pitchfork is a predictable affair, and anyone coming to it looking for huge twists or jaw-dropping surprises is likely to be disappointed. You can generally see where things are heading, and the film doesn’t stray too far from the familiar territory of horror anthology conventions. But there’s something to be said for a film that knows exactly what it is and gets on with the job without overstaying its welcome.
And that’s perhaps where Pitchfork works best. It’s not reinventing the anthology movie, nor is it likely to leave you desperately trying to piece together its mysteries long after the credits roll. What it does offer is an entertaining collection of horror stories wrapped around a decent central premise, with Tony Todd providing an appropriately memorable presence throughout. With its relatively short runtime, it manages to deliver its scares, tell its stories and get out before the formula starts to wear thin.
It’s hardly essential viewing, then, but for anyone with a soft spot for anthology horror, Pitchfork is an enjoyable enough way to spend an evening. (DC)
Rating: 7.5 / 10
Saturday at FrightFest 2026
Labyrinth Review
I had fun with this if you take it as a silly kind of Saw film. Yes, it probably didn’t need to be made, but I enjoyed it — not least because of the Scottish bad guy. Tommy Flanagan seriously chews the scenery here.
Strangers are brought together to face redemption for past misdemeanours. Some will have you saying HELL YEAH, while others are a little more thought-provoking.
It’s goofy and fun, I think. And if you’re okay with watching strangers compete and complete increasingly ridiculous tasks, it’s basically Taskmaster — just without Greg Davies and Little Alex Horne. (TC)
Rating: 7/10
FrightFest 2026 Short Film Showcase 2: UK and Ireland Shorts
Frightfest has always been a great supporter of short films, which are often the ‘in’ for teams who’ll make bigger names for themselves in the film industry. With every passing year the number of short films submitted for the festival grows, and this year saw the best of the best split across four separate showcases. Sadly, I was unable to get tickets for the first (they go very quickly) but managed to for the last three, so Short Film Showcase 2 was my first of the festival.
The quality is always good – and the endless beauty of a short film is that if you don’t like it, you haven’t got long to wait for another one. As a filmmaker, you can’t afford to waste dialogue or visual detail on anything that doesn’t have a purpose – yet can also take risks you couldn’t in a larger production, and the Frightfest showcases are a wonderful example of that in action.
This showcase focussed on talents from the UK and Ireland, and particular highlights were Pretend with Pibble – a quite disturbing and unique trip into both hysteria and nostalgia – and Violent Delight – a tale of art, possession and obsession.
Pretend with Pibble has an oddly disorientating quality to it, managing to combine elements of nostalgia with something much more disturbing lurking beneath the surface. It’s the sort of film that leaves you trying to work out exactly what you’ve just watched while simultaneously wishing you hadn’t seen it at all – which, for a horror short, is arguably a pretty good result.
Overall, showcase 2 was a strong introduction to this year’s Frightfest short film programme. With such a broad range of styles and ideas packed into a single showcase, it was a reminder of just how much can be achieved in a limited running time – and why the short film remains such an important part of the festival. (DC)
Dead Reset Review: FrightFest 2026
The original Dead Reset was an FMV (Full Motion Video, remember those?) game released in 2025. Cole wakes up in the belly of a mysterious outpost, only to find himself threatened at gunpoint and ordered to perform a life-saving operation to remove a mysterious organism from a hapless victim. Things inevitably go horribly wrong, and every choice he makes seems to lead to another gruesome disaster. The catch is that, after every downfall, time resets to a certain point. Cole is effectively trapped in a nightmarish loop and must learn from each failed attempt and use the knowledge he gains to find a way out of this new hell.
The film has a terrific visual style, possibly enforced to some extent by budget constraints but hugely effective, nonetheless. It leans heavily into the kind of Cassette Futurism seen in Alien, where the technology of the future still looks suspiciously like the technology of the past. Computers are chunky old-school desktops, video and cassette tapes are seemingly everywhere, and nothing feels particularly sleek or modern. Even the weapons look like they’re being held together with ribbon cable, duct tape and sheer optimism. It all gives the film a wonderfully grimy, lived-in quality, and that aesthetic goes hand in hand with some terrific practical effects that give the whole thing considerably more weight than its budget might suggest.
The performances are strong across the board, with everyone throwing themselves into the material and committing fully to the increasingly bizarre situation. There’s a real sense of desperation as Cole slowly pieces together what’s happening, and the repeated deaths and resets are handled in a way that makes his predicament increasingly stressful rather than simply repetitive. The video game origins stand out a mile, of course, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Anyone who has ever fallen foul of an ill-placed videogame save point, only to die and reload and then die again, will recognise the frustration of knowing exactly what not to do while still having to figure out what to do.
In many ways, it’s a low-budget British Edge of Tomorrow – albeit with an infinitely better title than the admittedly excellent but rather generic, identikit-sounding Tom Cruise starrer. Dead Reset doesn’t exactly reinvent the time-loop formula, and there’s nothing here that feels particularly groundbreaking, but it doesn’t really need to be. It’s a scrappy, inventive and thoroughly enjoyable little sci-fi horror that makes good use of its limitations, throws in some memorable practical effects and keeps the momentum moving as Cole repeatedly tries to escape his increasingly miserable fate.
A lot of fun, then, even if it doesn’t quite break any new ground. (DC)
Rating: 6 / 10
Grind Review
Another anthology, albeit one focused on the rat race that is employment in the modern day – and, primarily, the nightmare that is the gig economy. Four vignettes make up the collection: one about Multi-level Marketing (called Pyramid Selling back in my day!), one about Delivery Drivers, one about the increasingly disturbing world of Content Moderation, and the final segment concerning unionisation in the world of faceless mega-corporations.
Introduced by writer/directors Ed Dougherty and Brea Grant, it’s a viciously biting satire with some clever scares along the way, boosted considerably by the presence of the ever-brilliant genre stalwart Barbara Crampton. There’s a pleasingly nasty edge to the whole thing, with each segment taking a different aspect of modern employment and twisting it into something considerably more sinister. While the stories vary in their effectiveness, there’s a consistent sense of frustration and anger running throughout, which gives the anthology a surprisingly cohesive feel.
The Content Moderation segment was a particular highlight for me, focusing on the thankless task of being exposed to an endless stream of demoralising and dehumanising internet content. It’s an inherently grim subject matter, but the film makes excellent use of it, with some genuinely disturbing footage created by a series of contributors. There’s something particularly effective about the mundanity of the job being contrasted with the horrific material the moderators are expected to process, making the whole thing feel uncomfortably plausible.
The final segment, dealing with unionisation and the battle against faceless mega-corporations, is possibly the most disappointing of the four, never quite reaching the heights of what came before it. That said, it still offers a satisfactory resolution of sorts and brings the anthology’s various themes of exploitation, corporate greed and worker solidarity to a reasonably satisfying conclusion.
Overall, it’s a sharp, nasty and often very funny piece of work, with plenty of ideas and enough genuine scares to make it considerably more than just a collection of workplace satire. Not every segment lands equally well, but the stronger entries more than make up for the weaker ones.
The incredibly likeable and enthusiastic Brea Grant spoke of it potentially being the first film in a Grind Universe, and I’d certainly be along for that Door-dash ride. (DC)
Rating: 8 / 10
The Nameless Ballad Review
Frederico Zampaglione delivers a gothic tale of a tortured musician (aren’t they all?) to an eager FrightFest audience. Zampaglione has something of a reputation at the festival, and not entirely for the right reasons, but he’s there to introduce the film alongside a few members of the cast.
Australian-born Jamie Ward plays Sam Gallo, a successful musician who has been exiled to an Italian villa in the hope of producing another hit single (or an nth album, I forget) for his increasingly eager management team and record label. To add to his anxiety, he’s also part of the 27 Club – the age at which Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, Whitehouse and others met their untimely ends.
The peace and quiet, while initially useful, soon festers an obsession, particularly when his dog, Elvis, uncovers a mysterious wooden box containing a missing piano component and some sheet music. Ward plays the tortured artist convincingly enough – we know he’s tortured because he’s constantly furrowing his brow and screwing up pieces of sheet music – and soon finds himself dreaming about the previous occupants of the house and their connection to the very music he has just discovered.
It’s a great idea, but one that is never really explored in sufficient detail. Almost every line of dialogue feels clunky and expositional (“Remember that time you had the overdose in front of my family?”), while even poor old Labrador Elvis looks relieved when he finally manages to get out of there. A promising subplot about what happens to those who listen to the mysterious composition is introduced, only to be discarded in favour of more wandering around darkened corridors and looking pained.
Not the worst film of the festival – that honour will remain firmly with Frostbite – but despite some lovely direction and a great soundtrack, it ultimately feels lacking. There are some genuinely promising ideas here, but they’re never developed enough to make the film particularly involving, leaving me feeling rather hollow and, ultimately, uninvolved. (DC)
Rating: 4 / 10
Duke Mitchell Film Club: FrightFest 2026
Not so much an event and more a state of mind, the Duke Mitchell Film Club is a semi-regular occurrence at Frightfest. A chaotic (and alcohol-heavy) late-night out featuring a cavalcade of Frightfest talent – primarily the directors of the films showing at that year’s festival – choosing clips for the audience to watch, with absolutely no guarantee that any of them will be remotely appropriate for the hour, the audience, or indeed society.
It’s part film club, part drunken show-and-tell and part fever dream, with the selections ranging wildly from the obscure to the downright bizarre. From disturbing PSA films about how to recognise when your mother is having an overdose to a celebration of Screaming Mad George turning Mark Hamill into a cockroach in Guyver, it’s a delve into the weird and wonderful recesses of the genre, where the only real rule seems to be that the more inexplicable the footage, the better.
There are copious giveaways, quizzes and assorted opportunities to win things (although don’t scream out the answer like I did without putting your hand up, lest you be vocally branded an idiot – the answer was “The Long Good Friday” and there might be a (non) prize for anybody who can guess the question correctly), and the whole thing has the wonderfully unpredictable atmosphere of a night that could go absolutely anywhere. It’s always a highlight of the festival, not least because you never quite know what you’re going to be subjected to next.
Although, having said that, the footage from the deservedly lost children’s film Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang is one of the most genuinely terrifying things I’ve seen all week. I’m not entirely sure what lesson I was supposed to take from it, other than perhaps that some things are better left buried in the past. (DC)
Sunday at FrightFest 2026
Perfect Organism, Perfect Horror: Alien Isolation 2 Panel at FrightFest 2026
Not a film this time, but a panel organised by Sega, one of FrightFest’s sponsors. The sequel to 2014’s superlative Alien: Isolation is now impending, and the panel – consisting of Creative Director Al Hope, Art Director Ana Sopikova and Animation Director Simon Ridge – were there to discuss the game, its development, and what we can expect from the sequel.
I’ve read Andy Kelly’s excellent Alien: Isolation companion, Perfect Organism, so thought I was pretty au fait with a lot of the detail surrounding the game and its development. That said, the hour-long panel was entertaining, informative, and filled with revelations I hadn’t come across before. It was particularly interesting to hear the developers talk about the philosophy behind the original game and the lengths they went to make sure it felt authentically rooted in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film.
One of the most interesting things I took from the discussion was that a key part of the design ethos was the idea that if a 1979 prop builder couldn’t have made something for the film, it wasn’t allowed in the game. It’s a simple rule, but one that goes a long way towards explaining why Alien: Isolation feels so convincingly of its time. Rather than simply recreating the visual language of Alien, the team effectively treated the film as a piece of technology from an alternate 1979 and worked within the same limitations.
Alien: Isolation 2 was also available to play at the Festival, but sadly I never got the chance to have a go. Double-booking also meant I couldn’t attend the big-screen showing of Alien on the main screen, although luckily Tara was able to make it along. I’m rather hoping I’ll get another opportunity to see the sequel in action before too long. (DC)
FrightFest 2026 Short Film Showcase 3: International Horror Shorts
The third of the four showcases concentrated on international talent, opening with the brilliant Grýlu Sker, an atmospheric Icelandic ghost story of witches and shipwrecks. An innovative mix of animation and puppetry, it’s a film well worth seeking out on the festival circuit. Toby Poser, from the Adams Family – regulars at FrightFest, this year with The Glorious Dead – stars in and produced The Chosen, a short with a particularly vicious ending. However, it was the final trilogy of films in the short film showcase that will linger in this reviewer’s brain until his dying day.
Udders opens with a terrified man being pursued by unseen assailants, and I’ll leave it there. Man Eating Pussy, from Canadian filmmaker Emily Lawson, left me with my jaw hanging open, while No. 3 is, in its most innocent form, a short film about Paruresis (Shy Bladder Syndrome) – before descending into something resembling a cult straight out of Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste.
All three were frankly incredible: wildly different, completely unpredictable and exactly the sort of films that make a festival showcase so much fun. If you only bought a FrightFest ticket for these three shorts, you’d certainly have got your money’s worth. Wow. (DC)
The Glorious Dead
Okay, cards on the table: I’d never seen an Adams Family film before this one. I know they always attend FF for the whole weekend and are just like regular, normal people (see also Larry Fessenden, who I showed my tattoos to while he was standing with Toby Poser).
I didn’t know what to expect, but afterwards, I was completely in their debt. The Glorious Dead is a fun film about a rapture-type situation, with Toby Poser playing the sheriff of a small town that is going through something WEIRD.
Zelda Adams stars as Deputy Sheriff Mikey in this thought-provoking film. And let’s start a petition to stop Toby Poser making herself look so unglamorous! (TC)
Rating: 8 / 10
Alien at FrightFest 2026: Big Screen Review
So, David’s favourite film is Aliens, but he was off watching a short film showcase, so I braved Alien alone.
There’s not much I can say about it really, as it’s one of the classic horror sci-fi movies, but I will say that watching it in Dolby Atmos at the cinema was outstanding. The black of space was SOOO black! It was worth it for that alone.
I think my friend Brian said it was the original cut, but it looked magnificent on the big screen with all that Atmos sound. I wonder what it would have been like to see it for the first time on a big screen back in 1979. (TC)
Rating: 7.5 / 10
Gator Face Review
This one is unusual – on paper, it’s everything I should hate. A throwback to an era that was great at the time but has now been done to death, in a film that seems determined to emulate Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre at every opportunity. And yet Gator Face (you’ve got the cutest little Gator Face) held a certain appeal.
There’s some risible dialogue here that seems more suited to a comedy horror, but it’s delivered with such earnest sincerity that I’m not entirely sure it can be one. Then there’s the villain, who is more trope than character (muscled man in laughable gator mask, check). And yet, despite all of this, I still found myself cheering at the end.
Any twists are signposted way before they happen, while our hapless victims barely develop beyond their names. But there are some interesting kills, some lovely alligators, all practical effects (no CGI gators here!) and a surprise at the ending that you’ll never see coming. No, not the ending that screams “obvious sequel” – the bit just before that.
Somehow, against all expectations, Gator Face won me over.
(Not to be confused with the other 2026 film called Gator Face – a confusing overlap made even more confusing by both films featuring the same actor Scot Scurlock. Did Scot think he was working on two films, or one confusing one?) (DC)
Rating: 6 / 10
Spider Island Review
Christopher Smith’s 2006 horror comedy Severance (not to be confused with the TV series of the same name) was a genuine surprise at the time: a film that took the Eastern European horror tropes of Hostel and gleefully transplanted them into the world of the disastrous workplace morale trip. Blackadder’s Tim McInnerny played the obnoxious boss, while Andy Nyman was the likeable innocent trying to keep everything from falling apart.
Spider Island feels like something of a reunion, bringing Smith back together with both McInnerny and Nyman – although their roles are very different this time around. McInnerny plays a Shakespearean actor fallen on hard times, while Nyman is having palpable fun as David, the delightfully obnoxious owner of the Oceania Pearl Hotel.
The hotel is opening its doors for the very first time to a carefully selected group of internet influencers. David’s master plan is simple enough: ply them with free food, free booze and enough luxury to ensure a stream of glowing reviews. What could possibly go wrong? Well, perhaps the fact that the construction team cut a few corners during the hotel’s development – and, in the process, managed to seriously annoy the local spider population.
It soon becomes rather difficult to decide which is more obnoxious and relentless: poisonous spiders or self-professed internet celebrities. As the body count begins to rise, you may even find yourself struggling to decide who you actually want to survive. Fortunately, Spider Island isn’t particularly interested in making that decision easy. It is, at heart, a good old-fashioned creature feature, and there’s something wonderfully straightforward about watching a luxury hotel overrun by thousands of tiny, scurrying, eight-legged nightmares.
There are no giant mutant spiders here, thankfully (or perhaps disappointingly, depending on your tolerance for arachnids). Instead, the horror comes from the sheer number of them, with the little creatures seemingly capable of getting everywhere. The result is a film that occasionally makes your skin crawl while simultaneously encouraging you to laugh at the increasingly ridiculous predicament of its characters.
Much like Severance, there are characters to root for – yes, even among the influencers. Beneath all the mayhem there’s also a strong ecological message, with nature getting its revenge on a group of people who have blundered into an environment they really don’t understand. Thankfully, the environmental angle never overwhelms the fun. For the most part, Spider Island is far more interested in eight-legged anarchy and the increasingly grisly ways in which a bunch of beautiful people from Hollyoaks and beyond can meet their demise.
The film also benefits enormously from its cast. There’s clearly a sense that everyone involved understands exactly what sort of movie they’re making, and that willingness to embrace the silliness gives Spider Island much of its charm. The performances are broad without becoming unbearable, and the comedy sits comfortably alongside the horror rather than constantly getting in its way.
A perfect film for a Saturday night, Spider Island is old-fashioned horror in the school of Arachnophobia and Gremlins, with plenty of laughs, some superb performances and just enough gore to keep the creature-feature fans happy. Most importantly, it never takes itself too seriously. It knows that watching a luxury hotel full of influencers being terrorised by an army of poisonous spiders is fundamentally ridiculous – and it has a great deal of fun with that idea. (DC)
Rating: 8 / 10
Monday at FrightFest 2026
Oddities
Opinions were firmly split on this one. A friend said he found the two leads too obnoxious to root for, yet I can’t agree. It is, quite literally, the day from Hell for our two heroines, played by Lovie Simone and Lilimar, who unexpectedly find themselves on the run after accidentally killing their drug dealer. Their bad luck appears to take a turn for the better when a remote antique shop provides the perfect refuge from a nosy police officer, but it soon becomes apparent that stopping there was the worst possible choice they could have made.
I’d expected an Assault on Precinct 13-style siege when their old “friends” turn up to retrieve their stolen property – an act they seem to consider considerably more important than avenging their murdered friend. Instead, the plot takes an altogether more preternatural tangent, and what initially looks like a straight home-invasion setup develops into something considerably stranger.
The ever-reliable presences of Adrienne Barbeau and Xander Berkeley play the tormented owners of the antique store, burdened with an awful responsibility that gradually becomes clear as the story unfolds. There are definite Cabin in the Woods pretensions here, with the film reaching for something larger and more meta than its setup initially suggests. It never quite manages to pull those ambitions off, but it gets enough right to remain an enjoyable horror romp.
The atmosphere is helped considerably by the increasingly bizarre revelations, while the film does a good job of keeping you guessing about exactly what kind of horror story you’ve stumbled into. It also saves some of its nastiest moments for when you think the tension is finally starting to ease. Just as things appear to be settling down, the violence suddenly kicks up several notches, resulting in a surprisingly brutal final stretch.
It may not fully deliver on the bigger ideas it teases, and I can see why the two self-destructive leads might irritate some viewers, but I found them easy enough to get behind. Their increasingly desperate predicament gives the film its momentum, and the combination of oddball supernatural mythology, colourful supporting performances and bursts of outright nastiness makes this an entertaining little slice of horror.
Special mention must also go to the blistering Tangerine Dream style soundtrack, reminiscent of the soundtrack for Miracle Mile and provided by Cody Carpenter, talented son of John Carpenter and Adrienne Barbeau. (DC)
Rating: 7.5 / 10
Valley View Motel
Personally, I don’t know why this was included at FrightFest. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good film — in fact, it was one of my highlights.
Starring the directors, Nick Psinakis and Kevin Ignatious, it’s 1977 and two ne’er-do-wells are holed up in a grimy-looking motel. The motel owners are a weird brother-and- sister duo, and with casual organ trafficking on the side, what’s not to love?! (TC)
Rating: 8 / 10
FrightFest 2026 Short Film Showcase 4: UK and Ireland Shorts
Back to the UK and Ireland for the fourth – and final – showcase of the 27th FrightFest. With so many cast members and directors in attendance, they threaten at times to outnumber the audience, but that only adds to the wonderfully celebratory atmosphere as we reach the final bumper selection of smaller films for an eager and increasingly battle-hardened crowd.
By the slimmest of margins, this was probably the strongest set of shorts of the entire week, and it gets off to an excellent start with Call Centre Shiva, a darkly comic tale of a good Samaritan who takes his good intentions in a rather unexpected direction. It’s exactly the sort of mischievous, off-kilter storytelling that feels perfectly at home at FrightFest.
FrightFest favourite – and chum – Johnny Vivash also appears in CRACK HACK, a cautionary (and frequently hilarious) tale of virtual-reality sex that manages to be both very funny and distinctly uncomfortable. It’s another wonderfully odd little film that leaves you wondering whether you should laugh, wince, or perhaps do both simultaneously.
However, when it comes to saving the best – and certainly the most jaw-dropping – until last, you couldn’t possibly beat The Sorrows of Young Charlotte. The title sounds so perfectly innocent and gives absolutely no indication whatsoever of what is about to unfold. And unfold it does. I remember audibly gasping when I first watched it, and even now, thinking back on what I saw, I find myself wincing all over again.
And really, what better way to bring the final showcase to a close? After four showcases, countless films, plenty of laughs, a fair few shocks and more than a little cinematic carnage, The Sorrows of Young Charlotte provided the perfect final sting in the tail.
Wonderful stuff! (DC)
Full Moon Rising: FrightFest 2026 Documentary Review
If you know your horror, you’ll know the name Charles Band. Producer and director par excellence, he was the original founder of Empire Pictures (behind Ghoulies and its sequel, and Re-Animator), before going on to found Full Moon Pictures – responsible for pretty much every evil doll movie you’ve ever seen outside of Child’s Play.
Trancers, Puppet Master, Dollman, Demonic Toys, Evil Bong, Gingerdead Man, Subspecies – movie after movie, sequel after sequel, have sprung from the mind of this man. The documentary Full Moon Rising traces his prolific career from the early days right up to the present, offering an honest look at both the man himself and the glorious madness of low-budget show business. It’s directed by Sarah Appleton, who’s no stranger to horror documentaries, and she brings a real affection for the subject without ever losing her critical eye.
The film boasts a veritable who’s-who of horror guests, including John Carpenter and Barbara Crampton, along with a touching tribute to the sadly missed Stuart Gordon. Charles and his wife were on hand for the screening and stuck around for the Q&A afterwards, and he proved every bit as engaging in person as he is on screen – honest, effusive, and an absolute mine of anecdotes. It’s clear he’s a true maverick, and one who is still having the time of his life doing what he loves.
Heartily recommended. (DC)
Rating: 8.5 / 10
The Fright Stuff: FrightFest 2026 Documentary Review
Often, the true highlights of Frightfest are the movies that don’t sound particularly exciting on paper, or that you initially assume aren’t really for you. The Fright Stuff is just such a film. I’m a big fan of theme parks and ghost trains, and this documentary about the rising popularity of haunted house attractions in the States turned out to be a wonderful surprise.
From the humble origins of the concept in the UK, with traditional ghost houses and fairground attractions, to people finding ingenious uses for abandoned steel mills and other unlikely locations in the States, it’s a fascinating history. Anyone familiar with the world of haunted house attractions may also know of the nightmarish goings-on at McKamey Manor (itself the subject of another documentary, Monster Inside), which became infamous for its extreme approach and the allegations surrounding its owner. The Fright Stuff, thankfully, concentrates on something much more wholesome: innocent thrills and chills, and a fascinating cottage industry capitalising on the American love of Halloween.
There are entire businesses that exist solely to create props and effects for these Haunts, and the documentary gives us a great look at both the people who strive to make these operations work and the people who provide the terrifying ingredients. These are micro-communities of passionate and enthusiastic scarers, prop makers and performers, and it’s clear that they’re having an absolute whale of a time doing what they love. There’s something infectious about seeing people turn such an unusual hobby into a genuine livelihood.
The documentary itself is excellent – a real highlight of Frightfest – but what really sold it for me was the presence of its director (and star), John LaFlamboy. A human manifestation of positivity, ambition and enthusiasm, John was an absolute delight. Despite events in the documentary that would cause almost anybody else to give up, retire and get a “normal” job (inverted commas quite deliberate!), he maintains an absolute passion for Haunted Houses and the people who make them. It was a genuine joy to be in the presence of that enthusiasm, and his personality adds an extra layer of warmth to what could otherwise simply have been a fascinating history of the industry.
A wonderful documentary, and an absolute honour to be in the presence of the man behind it. Sometimes the best Frightfest discoveries are the films you never expected to fall in love with, and The Fright Stuff is a perfect example. (DC)
Rating: 9 / 10
Species Review
Known as Sanguine in its native France, I’m honestly not sure why the title was changed for certain territories – you’d think distributors would want to avoid any accidental association with the 1995 Natasha Henstridge sci-fi stinker of the same name.
A violent and shocking opening scene stuns the audience into silence: an underpaid fast-food worker, pushed to the very end of his tether during a shift, brutally murders an influencer who refuses to take no for an answer when trying to order something off-menu – before killing himself in a hideous way. It’s a gut-punch of an opener, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.
Margot (Mara Taquin) is a young ER intern starting her first job at a hospital – an environment so relentlessly stressful that she quickly finds herself struggling just to keep her head above water, let alone stand out from the crowd. As she begins treating patients, she notices something strange: people in similarly high-pressure careers keep turning up with identical symptoms – bleeding through unbroken skin, alongside other unsettling and unexplained dermatological complaints. Things naturally escalate from bad to worse, but the film keeps a tantalising question dangling throughout: is this ailment a curse, or is it secretly a blessing?
The film works as part satire on work-life balance and burnout culture, and the competitive, cutthroat energy among the young doctors gives it a distinctly Raw-like feel – which is by no means a criticism, given how well that comparison has aged. It’s a suitably icky, squirm-in-your-seat body horror, though it does wrap up a little too abruptly for my liking, as if a final act got trimmed somewhere along the way. The special effects team behind The Substance (another excellent Frightfest closer in its own year) worked on this one too, and their fingerprints are unmistakable – the practical gore here is stomach-churning in the best possible way.
Worth noting, as a friend of mine pointed out: this is another notable entry in the Depraved Bisexual trope, with Nervous and this film standing out as the clearest, most on-the-nose examples of the festival.
Visually, the colour work throughout is heavily reminiscent of giallo – blood-red rooms and corridors filtered through coloured door panelling create an environment that’s almost painful to look at, a world away from the sterile, bland hospitals we’re used to seeing on screen. It’s a bold, saturated aesthetic choice that reinforces just how far removed this hospital is from reality. Special mention should also go to the thumping electronic score, which is a near-constant presence throughout – like a discordant heartbeat running under the whole film. It gives the movie a genuinely satisfying rhythm, and it’s used with enough restraint that at times it’s barely audible, only to swell back in at exactly the right moment.
A wonderful way to close out the 27th Frightfest. The doors shut for another year, and we all say our goodbyes and wend our way home. The black T-shirts will be washed and packed away, ready and waiting for next August and the 28th Frightfest.
Thanks to Brian, Gary, Tom and, Sarah for the great company and here’s to 2027! (DC)
Rating: 8 / 10
The responsible parties who should be thoroughly ashamed:
Tara Court is a professional daydreamer and big fan of Autumn. When not writing reviews for Ginger Nuts of Horror, she can be found reading, singing songs to her dog, and watching endless reruns of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA. She hosts The Killening horror film podcast and Dear Tara, Long Time Listener on Noisebox Radio. Tara has also done some voice work, narrated an audiobook and acted in an audio drama about Mozart. She likes bats, cats, dogs, white wine, and Halloween. She dislikes olives, red wine, horsefly bites, and Christmas.
David is a writer, poet, playwright, journalist, radio presenter, voice actor, and silly old weasel. Jack of all trades and master of none, he is single-handedly responsible for four collections of short stories (The Shadow Cast by the World, Forever and Ever, Armageddon, Scenes of Mild Peril and Contents May Unsettle) and featured in The Book of Coventry released by Comma Press in 2024. He can often be found lurking mischievously at www.davidjcourt.co.uk.
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