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Film Category

Next Exit

Meet the Filmmaker

Mali Elfman

Writer/Director
Synopsis
NEXT EXIT follows a research scientist (Karen Gillan) who makes national news proving she can track people into the afterlife - Rose (Katie Parker) sees a way out and Teddy (Rahul Kohli) sees his chance to finally make it. These two strangers, both harboring dark secrets, race to join the doctor's contentious study and leave this life behind. While Rose is haunted by a ghostly presence that she can't outrun, Teddy is forced to confront his past. As these two misfits humorously quarrel their way across the country, they meet people along the way who force them to reckon with what is really driving them. The film also stars Tongayi Chirisa, Tim Griffin, Diva Zappa, and Nico Evers-Swindell.
Film Category

Do Not Disturb

Meet the Filmmaker

John Ainslie

Director
Synopsis
Do Not Disturb is a psychedelic exploration of love, lust and carnal desire. It follows Chloe and Jack's honeymoon in Miami where a peyote trip to strengthen their marriage bond forces them to confront their toxic relationship while it awakens a desire to consume human flesh. Love is all consuming in this narcotic nightmare crafted by writer/director John Ainslie.
Film Category

Slayers

Meet the Filmmaker

K. Asher Levin

Synopsis
Kick-ass vampire slayer, Elliot Jones (Thomas Jane), made it his life's mission to take revenge on the bloodsuckers who murdered his teenage daughter. After years of tracking them, he has finally reached their secret and hidden base. But to get to them he will need to use a motley crew of social media superstars. Enter "˜The Stream Team': party-girl Jules (Abigail Breslin), gen-z pro-gamer Flynn (Kara Hayward) and their team of trend-makers and breakers! With a hundred million-plus combined followers, they have attracted the attention of reclusive billionaire Beverly Rektor (Malin Akerman), who invites them to party at her multimillion-dollar vacation compound. They soon discover these rich people are none other than the ancient vampires that Elliot Jones is chasing. When the team is being held captive in a house of horrors to serve the vampires plan to take over the world, Elliott is their only hope of survival. As he links up with Flynn, a slayer in her own right, will he take down the vampire hoard and save The Stream Team?
Film Category

Run Sweetheart Run

Meet the Filmmaker

Shana Feste

Synopsis
After what begins as dinner with a client, a single mom (Ella Balinska) finds herself hunted by a monstrous and seemingly unstoppable assailant (Pilou Asbæk) in this terrifying dark thriller.
Film Category

The Loneliest Boy In The World

Meet the Filmmaker

Martin Owen

Synopsis
'The Loneliest Boy in the World' is a modern fairytale - with zombies. A satire and a celebration of family values, of the imagery of horror films, of suburban life, of the American Dream and of the ultimate taboo; death.
Film Category

Living With Chucky

Meet the Filmmaker

Kyra Gardner

Director
Synopsis
A filmmaker who grew up alongside Chucky the killer doll seeks out the other families surrounding the Child's Play films as they recount their experiences working on the ongoing franchise and what it means to be a part of the, "Chucky" family.
Film Category

The Leech

Meet the Filmmaker

Eric Pennycoff

Synopsis
A devout priest welcomes a struggling couple into his house at Christmas time. What begins as a simple act of kindness quickly becomes the ultimate test of faith once the sanctity of his home is jeopardized.
Film Category

Matriarch

Meet the Filmmaker

Ben Steiner

Synopsis
After an overdose nearly takes her life, Laura Birch (Jemima Rooper, The Girlfriend Experience, Flowers in the Attic: The Origin) escapes from the high-stakes pressure of the advertising world to return to her roots. Accepting an invitation home from her estranged mother (Kate Dickie, Game of Thrones, The Green Knight), Laura hopes the time away in the secluded English village will help calm the demons raging inside of her. She soon discovers that the locals of the town are all protecting an unspeakably dark secret"”a secret that involves not only her mother but her own terrifying destiny as well. Matriarch is from writer/director Ben Steiner and is a thematic successor to Steiner's 2018 20th Digital short Urn. The film also stars Sarah Paul, Franc Ashman, and Keith David Bartlett.
Film Category

Give Me An A

Meet the Filmmaker

15 Amazing Directors

Directors
Synopsis
A wild ride of an anthology reacting to the overturning of Roe v Wade through horror, dark comedy and sci-fi. Created by an all female filmmaking team, this 17-segment series focuses on the visceral gut reactions of each filmmaker to expand conversations about women's reproductive rights and the importance of bodily autonomy and also addresses the issues of a democracy that does not protect the needs of the majority of the population.
Film Category

The Once and Future Smash & End Zone 2

Meet the Filmmaker

Sophia Cacciola

Director

Michael J. Epstein

Director
Synopsis
In 1970, Mikey & William both portrayed football cannibal Smash-Mouth in the influential cult hit, End Zone 2. Now, 50 years later, only one can wear the mask.
Playing with:
End Zone 2
Fifteen years after the events of End Zone, Smash-Mouth is back to finish off the cheerleaders who killed his mother.
North American Premiere
Runtime: 1h 1min
Country: United States
Directed by August Kane
Produced by Tex Beckerson, Jacques Renault
Written by L. Ray Hobbson
Main Cast: Percy Wynne, Bernadette Ryan, Dahlia Dimont, Patricia Ford, Melody Riviera, Mikey Smash, Randall Browning
Film Category

The Lost Boys (1987)

Meet the Filmmaker

Joel Schumacher

Director
Synopsis
Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire! When newly-divorced Lucy (Dianne Wiest) moves her sons to her father's house in Santa Carla, California—"the murder capital of the world"—her teenage son, Michael (Jason Patric), quickly falls in with the town's bad kids: a bike-riding, Jim Morrison-worshipping gang of blood-sucking vampires. Her younger son Sam (Corey Haim) and his buddies, the Frog brothers, are the only ones who recognize the signs of vampirism in Michael, and they plot to battle the legions of the night before they take over the entire town. Co-starring Barnard Hughes, Ed Herrmann, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz and Corey Feldman
Film Category

FOLLOW HER

Meet the Filmmaker

Sylvia Caminer

Synopsis
With arresting visuals and an engrossingly lurid mystery, FOLLOW HER is a nail-biting, seat-squirming, stylish suspense thriller that swept the recent Fantasporto Film Festival, including wins for Best Picture, Best Actress, and the Audience Award as well as Jury Awards for Best Film at Popcorn Frights, Ravenheart and Sinistro. The disturbing but timely female-led psycho-sexual thriller centers on a struggling actress and live streamer who has finally found her hook: secretly filming creepy interactions she encounters via online job listings, and using the kinks of others to fuel her streaming success. For her next episode, she's been hired to write the ending of a screenplay in a remote, lavish cabin. Once there, the alluring self-proclaimed screenwriter hands her a script in which the two of them are the main characters. This client isn't what he seems, and even though the money's great... the real payment here could cost her life.