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Festival coverage

Abertoir

14 November – 19 November 2023

This year's Abertoir features some great new features which have enjoyed success on the international festival circuit, plus some pleasingly sinister Welsh shorts and a talk on Welsh horror traditions. There's also an old favourite as you've never seen it before in sing-along-a-Wicker Man. Not all the films have been announced yet so we'll be adding to this page as more is revealed.

The festival runs from 14 to 19 November.

View complete schedule

Other years (12)

Box office and information

Latest reviews

  • The Moor
    Review preview for The Moor

    Cronin... perfectly captures the atmosphere of the little houses clustered around the moor, the distinctive quality of the light within them, the way that they feel like a small bastion of safety against the vastness of night.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    Claire was just a child when her best friend was abducted and murdered. 25 years later, Bill, the dead boy's father, has a plan to learn the truth about what really happened. With the help of psychic Eleanor, they venture deep into a haunted moor to find his son’s supposed resting place. But they find more than just the ghosts of dead children, for something dark and evil stirs at their presence.
  • The Vampire Lovers
    Review preview for The Vampire Lovers

    Though it’s a bit stagey in places, the film...hits on something meaningful in the way that it uses 18th Century social conventions to address to the discomfort and hypocrisy of a subsequent age.

    Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
    Seductive vampire Carmilla Karnstein and her family target the beautiful and the rich in a remote area of Germany in the late 18th Century.
  • Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life Of Cliff Twemlow
    Review preview for Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life Of Cliff Twemlow

    There are so many great stories surrounding Cliff that it’s clear director Jake West was spoilt for choice.

    Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
    Polymath Twemlow was a nightclub bouncer, novelist, composer, singer, screenwriter, producer and actor, who for a decade was the most prolific indie filmmaker in the UK! Witness how this 20th century Renaissance man created his own innovative micro-film industry in Manchester.
  • Enter The Clones Of Bruce Lee
    Review preview for Enter The Clones Of Bruce Lee

    A fascinating portrait of a cinematic era which will leave those who remain martial arts fans with a lot of titles to hunt down.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    A documentary about the men drafted in to fill the gap and keep audiences happy after the death of cinema's greatest martial arts star.
  • Raging Grace
    Review preview for Raging Grace

    Raging Grace is a Gothic thriller with the potential to appeal to a wide audience. It’s also a fierce critique of the racism embedded in a culture which still treats it as normal for some perfectly capable people to be waited on by others, and to treat them as less than human in the process.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    An undocumented Filipina immigrant is struggling to do the best she can for her daughter when she secures the perfect job, taking care of an extremely wealthy but terminal old man. The new position pays well and guarantees a roof over their heads but very soon, she realise that something is amiss.
  • Red Rooms
    Review preview for Red Rooms

    It is an assured and relentless exposé.

    Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
    A woman becomes obsessed with the trial of a murderer.
  • Monolith
    Review preview for Monolith

    Vesely’s camera directs our attention very effectively and makes use of every aspect of the small set.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    Recently disgraced and desperate for a story, a young journalist holes herself up in her parents’ luxurious home and gets to work on the only job she can get - hosting a clickbait investigative podcast. Then she discovers a strange artefact and begins to convince herself it is evidence of an alien conspiracy.
  • The Exorcist (Director's Cut)
    Review preview for The Exorcist (Director's Cut)

    At 12, Regan was a helpless child in 1973; in today's world we instinctively grant her more agency so the territory between self and demon becomes more obscure.

    Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
    A mother fights to save her child, who may be possessed by a demon.
  • The Wicker Man: The Final Cut
    Review preview for The Wicker Man: The Final Cut

    [The new footage] doesn’t severely blunt, and in some other cases enhances, the impact of a film that yields more with every viewing.

    Jeff Robson · 4.5 out of 5
    A policeman gets more than he bargained for on a remote Scottish isle - now in a new, restored version with additional footage.

Features