The organisers of Grimmfest have revealed further details of the line up for their 2020 online festival including world premieres and special guests.
The online edition of Grimmfest this year features over 20 feature films, two short film showcases, Q&As, seminars an audience with Mick Garris and a string of exclusive content.
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Running 7 – 11 October 2020, the festival opens with the European premiere of John Hyams’ harrowing psychological thriller, Alone, featuring a powerhouse performance from Jules Willcox as a grieving widow who finds herself caught up in a savage game of cat and mouse with Marc Menchaca’s ruthless and relentless misogynous psychopath.
Grimmfest 2020 also features a focus on iconic female horror stars with Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog) confronting a Faustian pact with a fracking company in the European premiere of Unearth. Grimmfest favourite Pollyanna MacIntosh (The Walking Dead) revs up for the European premiere of girl-gang biker revenge flick Revenge Ride and, 34 years after Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Caroline Williams returns to Stretch’s midnight DJ slot for the European Premiere of vampire flick Ten Minutes To Midnight and writer-director Brea Grant and actress Angela Bettis team up for the blisteringly brutal hospital-based black comedy 12 Hour Shift. There’s also Fiona Dourif as a troubled psychic facing malevolent Malaysian mysticism and her own dark past, in the World premiere of haunted house shocker, The Medium.
There’s more female-centred horror, as a wheelchair-bound woman finds herself trapped in an isolated house with a rabid dog, in the tense and claustrophobic Ropes, and an alienated young housewife begins to fear she’s a malfunctioning android in the icy I Am Ren, both UK Premieres.
In contract, Grimmfest also features a trio of films exploring the darker side of masculinity with paranoid jealousy leads to total meltdown, as a commitment-phobic schlub and his long-suffering girlfriend return to his family home only to encounter a bizarrely obsessive boyhood friend in the UK Premiere of the darkly comic It Cuts Deep. A desperate need for friendship leads an alienated middle-aged loner into an increasingly disturbing relationship with a VHS tape, in the European premiere of the unsettling Rent-A-Pal; while a laconic bar-room shaggy dog story escalates into a gory and claustrophobic Noir nightmare, in the UK premiere of The Oak Room, from Grimmfest favourites Cody Calahan and Chad Archibald.
Grimmfest 2020 will also continue its support of independent voices in the horror movie genre with the European Premiere of HP Lovecraft’s The Deep Ones; whilst Fatal Attraction meets The Blob as misogynous sexual mores encounter old school EC Comics style poetic justice in the World premiere of B. Harrison Smith’s The Special. There’s a night on the town you’ll never forget, in the UK premiere of synapsis-sizzling South African psychedelic drug-trip alien possession movie, Fried Barry. Body jacking parasites disrupt a polite dinner party with gory consequences in the European premiere of outrageous black comedy An Ideal Host. The Big Chill meets Battle Royale as a college camping trip turns into a fight for survival in Triggered. And an African American family on the run collides with cannibal Klansmen in the World premiere of Death Ranch, Charlie Steeds’ delirious tribute to Seventies grindhouse and blaxploitation cinema.
With the move online for Grimmfest 2020, which also includes international movies and a world premiere of The Unhealer with a contemporary take on the high school horror film featuring Lance Henriksen and Natasha Henstridge, the organisers are also offer exclusive content to full festival pass holders.
Features include a ruminative reimagining of the old school “demon child” movie in the UK premiere of emotionally devastating Stray. A timely documentary celebration of what binds us together as a community, in The Horror Crowd. Tables are turned to terrifying effect, in the UK premiere of the visceral and confrontational Anonymous Animals. Long form shorts include the UK premiere of Blue & Malone in which a weary journalist has an eye-opening encounter with her own past, there’s an encounter with the in-laws from hell in the UK premiere of Patrick Is Outside, and squirm-inducing body horror in the stomach-churning Hungry Joe and the nightmarish The Altruist, which receives its UK Premiere.
Grimmfest will also host an exclusive panel on Iconic Women in Horror, featuring some of the stars of this year’s selected films, talking about their careers. Guests are already lining up for Grimmfest 2020 including Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Pollyanna McIntosh (The Walking Dead), Caroline Williams (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) and Adriene Barbeau (The Fog), with many more yet to be confirmed.
Grimmfest 2020 runs from 7 – 11 October 2020. Tickets available from Grimfest.com.
