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FrightFest · 2026

FrightFest 2026

Discovery Screen 1

Programme

19 films · 8 reviews

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The Alice Paradox

Depicting a famous thought experiment in Quantum Mechanics, Alice travels back in time and is transported into an alternate version of the recent past. Trapped in a world which prizes collectivism over individuality, Alice is forced to confront her life choices, grappling with profound questions about identity, fate, and the search for meaning.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: William Brooke; Stars: Jessica Kinsey, Gwithian Evans, Madeline Smith, Jeffery Kissoon)

Binding Eva

Review preview for Binding Eva

It’s Gerrard who really carries the film, presenting us with a young man whose conflicted thinking is never well concealed despite his efforts to seem in control, but who has real emotional depths beneath it.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
Deep in the Forest of Dean, a small-time criminal on the run, returns again and again to the same moment of judgement, and the same impossible choice.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Conscian Morgan; Writer: Will Clempner, Conscian Morgan, Roffem Uzong; Stars: Ryan Ralph Gerrard, Catherine Deevy, Darcey Wood, Beautiful Bill)

Full review See: Interview with Conscian Morgan and Ryan Ralph Gerrard about Binding Eva

Bowels Of Hell (Privadas De Suas Vidas)

Review preview for Bowels Of Hell

The production values here are a cut above what one would normally expect for something with this theme and these characters.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
A mother battling trauma faces a surreal nightmare when toilets mysteriously transform into killer beings, forcing her to confront both her personal demons and these bizarre supernatural threats.

(Country: Brazil; Year: 2026; Director: Gurcius Gewdner, Gustavo Vinagre; Stars: Antonia Baudouin, Gurcius Gewdner, Gustavo Vinagre, Chandelly Braz, Benjamín Damini, Maria Gladys, Caetano Gotardo, Bruce LaBruce)

Full review

The Brook

Moving to the village of his mother’s youth, an art student discovers that his grandad’s old video camera shows one hour into the past. The community believe their village is protected by a puma that watches over the 'good'. Then one of the 'good' goes missing.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Paul Stainethorpe; Stars: Connor Lawson, Helen Chong, Kylie Ann Ford, Jill Dellow)

Compliance

Review preview for Compliance

Mangione-Smith...is particularly successful at telling the story dynamically without compromising the found footage approach.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A found footage horror film about the modern surveillance state, dark web crime, and political conspiracy.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Kyle Mangione Smith; Writer: Kyle Mangione Smith; Stars: Megan Wilcox, Lindsey Normington, Charlie Wood, Neil Wachs)

Full review

The Death Of Us

A couple struggle to come to terms with the loss of their child during a violent home invasion by a cult.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Annabella Rich; Stars: Nicholas Vince, Marta Svetek, Annabella Rich, Chris Mills)

Dracula: The Night Around Us

Review preview for Dracula: The Night Around Us

Schwab invests heavily in atmosphere.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A disillusioned Dr John Seward regains his faith in humanity through a bond with Mina and her daughter Lucy, only to be hunted by the legendary evil force that thrives on their destruction.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Chris Schwab; Writer: Chris Schwab, based on the book by Bram Stoker; Stars: Eric Toms, Marlene Mc'Cohen, Raelan Mackieowitz, Spencer Weitzel, Brenton Jones)

Full review See: Interview with Chris Schwab about Dracula: The Night Around Us

Electric Meat

A photographer's world unravels when a murdered model he's adopted as his muse decides she doesn't want to stay dead. A failed artist-turned-butcher, comfortable around dead meat, he decides to keep her body. But he becomes convinced that she is both alive and dead.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Dan Schaffer; Stars: Caspian Faye, Emily Booth, Nina Courson, Sylvia Soska)

Faces Of Death

Review preview for Faces Of Death

It’s rare to find a character this well developed in a slasher film, but Goldhaber pays equal attention to the smaller roles.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
A moderator at a social media platform gets thrown face-first into a macabre mystery when she uncovers a series of visceral snuff videos bearing resemblance to a mythical 1978 cult film.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Daniel Goldhaber; Stars: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler, Charli XCX)

Full review

Full Moon Rising

Review preview for Full Moon Rising

The thesis behind it doesn’t really emerge until the end, when we get the suggestion that if Band’s work is less visible these days, that’s at least in part because of what has happened to everything else.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A documentary about the director and producer Charles Band.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Sarah Appleton; Stars: Charles Band, Richard Band, Dennis Paoli, John Carpenter, Barbara Crampton)

Full review

Grin

Four friends who committed a horrific crime when they were young think it will remain a secret forever until they discover and play a vintage board game. When the game unwittingly summons the grotesque clown demon ‘Grin’, it soon becomes clear that the evil entity targets those who have committed terrible sins.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Lawrence Fowler; Stars: Gareth Tidball, Simon Davies, Lucas Edwards, Virginia Gilchrist)

Heraldry Paranormal

Four paranormal investigators want to find definitive proof of ghosts in Yorkshire, but soon find themselves at odds with conmen, an internet backlash, and terror beyond their expectations.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Ashley Nashville; Stars: Jimmy Roberts, Parker Paige, Tara Buranakul, Lance J Parker)

Infirmary

A security guard is on his first shift at an abandoned Wilshire hospital. The facility was once notorious for unorthodox experimental practices on its mentally ill inmates, and paired with a retiring guard whose behaviour feels odd, hefinds the ambience instantly disturbing.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Nicholas Pineda; Stars: Paul Syre Lee, Mark Anthony Williams, Danielle Kennedy, Corinna Wagner-Smith)

The Latcher

A dedicated midwife and bereaved mother is put on leave and forced to process her grief in the remote bushland house where she lost everything, her attempts to move on disrupted by the creeping presence of a nightmarish entity.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2026; Director: James Hunter; Stars: Lucy Lovegrove, Darcy Kent, Monique Fisher)

Snapshot

Found-footage horror reveals the complex fate of an all-ladies ghost-hunting society in 19th century London.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Joseph Archer; Stars: Cathy Wippell, Lydia Helen, Nadia Lamin, Hazel Rodgers)

Starsuckers

An influencer couple invites their most loyal superfan couple to an intimate weekend retreat, secretly planning to use them as the centrepiece of their next viral reinvention. However, the curated weekend unravels into psychological warfare when each couple’s vision for the weekend congeals into something feral.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2026; Director: Jason Butler, Brett Butler; Stars: James Alex, Manon Ens-Lapointe, Jersey Anderson, Jacob Stickles)

Terrestrial

Review preview for Terrestrial

Concerned with exploring what ordinary people might do in extremis, Terrestrial is one of those films that turns on a single line.

Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
During a weekend reunion, a rising science fiction author welcomes three college friends to his home, but strange events begin to blur the lines between reality and imagination.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Steve Pink; Writer: Connor Diedrich, Sam Johnson; Stars: Brendan Hunt, Pauline Chalamet, Rob Yang, Germaine Fowler, Edy Monica, James Morosini)

Full review See: Interview with Steve Pink about Terrestrial

Wrath Of The Gods

Review preview for Wrath Of The Gods

There are moments when things come together and the fierce weather generates a powerful mood.

Jennie Kermode · 2 out of 5
The North Sea island of Hel is cloaked in mystery, myth and misogyny. Isolated because the local community despise her, Anna is torn between the ghosts of the past and the gods of the present as an ill wind blows through, and young girls vanish.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Justin Hardy; Writer: Dominic Hardy, Justin Hardy; Stars: Francis Magee, Christiane Schaldemose, Lynsey Rendall, Martha Robertson)

Full review

Zip Wire

When her groundbreaking discovery is stolen and her partner murdered, a pharmaceutical researcher is thrust into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse high in the Dolomite mountains, her only salvation being across a treacherous aerial runway.

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Howard J Ford; Stars: MyAnna Buring, Joseph Millson, Saffron Burrows, Silvia Presente)