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Festival coverage

FrightFest

21 August – 25 August 2025

This year's Frightfest has a different flavour, with less of the familiar and a good assortment of truly inventive, challenging films. One thing that's the same as ever is that there's an impressive selection of premières, with wide-ranging themes. You'll also find some of the most impressive genre work to have made its mark elsewhere on the festival circuit this year.

Frightfest has always been international in its focus and that's very much apparent here, with opportunities to see the best of what's emerging from developing horror industries around the world, as well as some treats from well-established industries such as those in Indonesia and South Korea. There's also a handful of films which the festival's luminaries have assisted through development. You'll also find a smattering of obscurities, and a chance to revisit Neil Marshall's The Descent on the occasion of its 20th anniversary.

The festival runs from 21 to 25 August.

Other years (19)

Box office and information

Latest reviews

  • Crushed
    Review preview for Crushed

    What is interesting here is that Olivia is never objectified.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    In suburban Bangkok, a family's faith is thrown into crisis when their daughter is kidnapped.
  • Jimmy And Stiggs
    Review preview for Jimmy And Stiggs

    The pace is so manic, the action so intense, that it’s easy to be fully immersed in Jimmy’s experience.

    Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
    A filmmaker spirals into an out of control bender, during which he comes to believe that he has been abducted by aliens. Fearing they’ll come back, he contacts an old friend to help him gear up for war.
  • Primate
    Review preview for Primate

    I didn't go in with high expectations but I was thrilled.

    Andrew Robertson · 3.5 out of 5
    Home from college, Lucy reunites with family including pet chimp Ben. Ben contracts rabies during a pool party and turns aggressive. Lucy and her friends barricade themselves in the pool, devising ways to survive the vicious chimp.
  • Super Happy Fun Clown
    Review preview for Super Happy Fun Clown

    Seward invests heavily in her character. Despite everything Jen does, one keeps hoping for the world to give her a break.

    Jennie Kermode · 2.5 out of 5
    An unhappy woman who is tired of being pushed around decides to combine her love of clowning, serial killers and classic movie monsters into a night of bloody horror the world will never forget.
  • The Red Mask
    Review preview for The Red Mask

    There’s smart staging, structural and visual misdirection, and a number of sharp twists.

    Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
    When an outspoken queer screenwriter is chosen to pen the final instalment of the legendary slasher franchise The Red Mask, she and her girlfriend are harassed by die-hard fans. They escape to a secluded Airbnb, where she concocts a dangerous game to play to unlock her writer’s block. Then two uninvited guests crash the scene.
  • Affection
    Review preview for Affection

    There’s a lot of interesting stuff to explore here and it’s a shame that we don’t get into it in more depth.

    Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
    Ellie is stuck in a cyclical nightmare grappling with a medical condition that erratically resets her memory. Left unable to remember her loving husband or young daughter, each reset leaves her disoriented and haunted with vivid memories and scattered recollections of an unfamiliar life she’s never lived. What is the cause of her rare illness, and can her husband really help cope with her affliction?
  • Posthouse
    Review preview for Posthouse

    With an eye of the colonial history of the Philippines, Red pieces together the story of several generations of a family whose lives have been inextricably wound up with the country’s developing film industry

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    A troubled film editor and his distant daughter release an ancient monster while working to restore an incomplete silent horror movie from the forgotten Filipino horror past.
  • Daughters Of Darkness
    Review preview for Daughters Of Darkness

    The story is told more through symbols, the expressionist, the surreal, rather that through the harsh binary abstractions of language.

    Donald Munro · 4.5 out of 5
    While passing through a vacation resort, a newlywed couple encounters a mysterious, strikingly beautiful countess and her aide.
  • Five
    Review preview for Five

    What does deserve attention here is Harvey Davis’ score, which skillfully balances Lifestyle motifs with horror ones to great comic effect.

    Jennie Kermode · 2 out of 5
    A struggling actor is hoping her star will rise again with the romcom Renovated Romance, but while on location shooting her hopeful comeback, she finds a cabin in the woods and becomes possessed by a demonic force, causing havoc amongst the crew.
  • The Serpent's Skin
    Review preview for The Serpent's Skin

    Alice Maio Mackay’s...most accessible film to date.

    Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
    A young woman leaves her transphobic small-town, and develops a romance with tattoo artist Gen with whom she shares a paranormal connection. But their deep-rooted insecurities unknowingly release a demon, which possesses one of their ex-lovers and begins feeding on their friends by sucking out their lifeforce.

A–Z of FrightFest 2025 reviews

Features