Winter is coming, and so is Soho Horror Fest for a sprawling 2023 hybrid edition. Spread across two consecutive weekends which each have a unique film program, ready to unfold at the Whirled Cinema in South London before returning to your inner sanctums for a 4 day online home-invasion of screenings and special events. Over 30 features and 50 short films have been painstakingly conjured from the very best in independent genre cinema, all set to make even the hardiest cult member shit their robes.
The name of this year's game is to shatter the shackles of horror normalcy, with things ready to get weird. Opening the festival is the International Premiere of The Hyperborean, which resembles Knives Out on a moonshine bender. Prepare to get mummy-wrapped up in the rye humour and cosmic chaos of this brain buster, coming from the director of Cult Hero and the writer of Pontypool.
Not bonkers enough? What about When Harry Met Sally for necrophiliacs in Isti Madarász’s fantastical mortuary romance Halfway Home? There is also psychiatric TIFF sensation Fixation, or American Dream meets Greek Tragedy in the UK Premiere of the perverse Hippo. Previous festival alumni filmmakers Mary Dauterman and Anthony Cousins return with the European Premieres of their feature debuts, in the forms of feline body-horror Booger, and a trips to the woods for the gooey and terrifying Frogman.
Upholding the festival's principle of platforming LGBTQ+ horror is the centrepiece film, the International Premiere of Saint Drogo. From the creators of cult favourite Death Drop Gorgeous, this horny, ethereal, and shockingly savage queer folk horror will leave audience's jaws on the floor. Bringing even more horn-dog horror is the carnal delights of Aimee Kuge's raucous Cannibal Mukbang, while keeping up the gore for some midnight madness if the UK Premiere of Adam Mason's supernatural slasher Baby Blue. However, if Sunday afternoon gentleness is more your speed, try not to lose your head with Cave Casas' festival circuit favourite The Coffee Table.
A showpiece gala for this year's festival will focus on Satanic Panic, and this opens with a special preview of the disturbing documentary Satan Wants You which follows the untold story of the '80s moral panic. There will also be a reckoning of religious hypocrisy in harrowing Australian horror Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism, satanic summoning of a more light-hearted and puppet-filled nature with the English Premiere of Onyx The Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, and closing the in-person festival is Dutch Southern's hypnotic cultist crime opus Only The Good Survive.
The virtual festival also partakes in the Satanic Panic gala, as it opens with the International Premiere of Satranic Panic. This demon filled road trip movie comes from Australian queer teen auteur Alice Maio Mackay, who will also present her alien parasite feature T Blockers. Australian horror finds itself front and centre in 2023 with the runaway success of Talk To Me, and Sohome Horror Fest celebrates it by hosting an Australian Horror summit. Sam Curtain's nihilistic Beaten To Death will literally beat you to death, while confined creature feature Subject will certainly leave you feeling clawstrophobic. Along with an Antipodean short film showcase and a roundtable discussion about the history and importance of the country's stamp on the genre, there are plenty of reasons to come down under mate.
The genre's broadest reaches are on show, starting with the hand-animated marvel of '80s nostalgia in Zach Passero's The Weird Kidz. There is also the unholy fusion of Lovecraft and full-blown musical in the goofy and ear-worm filled Eldritch, USA, and a heart-warming apocalyptic love-letter to the power of filmmaking in The Last Movie Ever Made.
Fear will assault your airwaves, beginning with the skin-crawling study of psychopathy that is Tearsucker, where a man thirsts for - you guessed it - tears. From Chile, an all-female black metal band conjures more than just riffs in Patricio Valadares' Invoking Yell. Ensuring that the truly unhinged weirdness is not confined to just the physical festival, we have a special preview of the human sized puppet nightmare Abruptio, a film which was 9 years in the making. More marionette madness is available courtesy of the unhinged Carousehell 3, where Duke the merry-go-round horse fights a hitman chocolate Easter bunny.
A few films fly across the pond to have their International Premiere, starting with Terence Krey's intimate and insidious coven spooker Summoners. A husband and wife separately plot to murder each other on the same fateful night in Zachary Burns' twisted Hell Hath No Fury, while hilarity and catharsis collide in Cassie Keet’s witty cult comedy Scream Therapy. To close the festival, deck the halls with bows of horror for a very merry aXeMas with Santastein.
There are special collaborations with female collective Ghouls Magazine, who present their first curated film programme in Ghoulsbumps, and a live 25th anniversary celebration of Disturbing Behaviour with Drunken Horror Podcast. There really is something for everyone in this gathering of 2023's horror greats, so don't miss out. Festival passes and tickets are on sale now! Summon Yourself.
The Soho Horror Film Festival will run from 24th-26th November at the Whirled Cinema in Brixton, London. The online Sohome Horror Film Festival will run from 30th November to the 3rd December. Full details on all the films on show and tickets can be found at www.sohohorrorfest.com
Follow the festival on Facebook, X and Instagram @SohoHorrorFest
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