Frightfest Glasgow 2020: Last News

A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio is an anthology with a difference. Rather than several filmmakers being commissioned to create a short for inclusion in a feature film, it is instead a collection of pre-existing shorts that have been curated and worked together with a new wraparound story. The masterminds behind this idea are Argentinian directors Nicolás and Luciano Onetti, of Francesca and Abrakadabra fame, whom also direct the linking story.

Joe Begos’ Bliss was one of the most talked about films of last summer’s Arrow Video Frightfest. The film was a modern take on the vampire genre and followed a drug-fuelled artist on a spiral into blood-lust. It’s been barely six months and Begos is already back at Frightfest – this time the Glasgow event – with his follow-up VFW. 

After a routine prostate exam, Chip (Tyler Cornack, whom also serves as director and co-scribe) becomes obsessed with inserting things into his behind. It all begins with a bar of soap, but soon Chip’s going down a slippery slope and sticks all manner of things in there. This culminates, only ten minutes in, with the family pet and a local child meeting a disturbing fate. The story then jumps forwards in time where we find Chip hiding out in an alcoholics anonymous group. Here he gets partnered with new attendee, Russell Fox (Tyler Rice), a detective whom unwittingly triggers Chip’s compulsion once more. It’s then down to Fox to investigate the new wave of disappearances. Can he stop Chip before it’s too late?

A softly spoken palliative nurse, Maud (Morfydd Clark), moves into the house of a famous terminally ill dancer, Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), to help make her more comfortable in her last days. Although initially at odds, the pair soon strike up a close bond. After Maud reveals her intentions to save Amanda’s soul, this bond fractures, and Maud (with the help of God) must do everything in her power to save her charge.

After Bong Joon-ho’s success with Parasite, South Korean cinema is pretty hot right now. It’s the perfect time therefore for Arrow Films to have acquired another potential South Korean hit – Zombie For Sale. Pre-Parasite, South Korea was already firmly on the zombie film map thanks to the brilliant Train to Busan, an action-packed tale of a zombie outbreak on a busy commuter train. In case the title hasn’t given it away, Zombie for Sale also hones in on the popular horror sub-genre, although it takes a significantly different approach.

Detective Jeff Anderson (Shawn Ashmore) returns home to discover his wife dead in their bathtub. Despite evidence to the contrary he becomes obsessed with proving her death to have been murder. He soon uncovers that the culprits are a father and son duo with a vendetta against successful women. As the net closes in on the pair, Anderson discovers that they may be a few steps ahead of him, and the stakes to capture them rise dramatically.

Last summer André Øvredal released Scary Stories to Tell in Dark, now comes The Mortuary Collection, an anthology film that taps into that same dark energy. Told in more of a portmanteau style than a simple anthology, The Mortuary Collection begins in a funeral home as a young woman, Sam (Caitlin Custer), responds to a Help Wanted ad. Believing her to be incapable for the position, the funeral director Montgomery Dark (Clancy Brown) begins to recount the stories of how several people (bodies) came to his establishment.

Set almost entirely within the walls of one house, A Ghost Waits tells the lonely story of building maintenance man Jack (MacLeod Andrews). After being sent to a nightmare property by his boss Neil, Jack discovers that the reason for the constant tenant turnover is down to the fact that the house is haunted. Haunting the building is Muriel (Natalie Walker), a haunter at the top of her game. Her flawless record hits a snag with Jack, and though initially at odds with one another, they soon begin to bond on a very personal level.

We know more about space than we do about the depths of the oceans. It seems a little odd then that there are far more horror movies set in the great beyond than the deep below. It seems that the tides might finally be changing though. Earlier this year we got ‘Alien in the sea’ sci-fi horror Underwater, and now comes Sea Fever, a film whose elevator pitch is basically ‘The Thing on a boat’.

Alicia (Paula Silva) and Bruno (Augusto Gordillo) are visiting Alicia’s home town. Whilst there, they decide to spend the day in the local quarry hanging out with Alicia’s childhood BFF’s Tincho (Rafael Beltrán) and Tola (Luis Pazos). Things aren’t quite that straightforward though as Tincho and Alicia have a romantic history, and Tincho seems to be having a hard time disentangling himself. This isn’t helped by Alicia’s apparent indecision on who she wants to be with. Cooped up together in the secluded and remote location starts to cause tensions to arise and paranoia to set-in, and it’s not long before cataclysmic events unfold.

We’ve all seen plenty of films that deal with priests performing exorcisms. Typically they all seem to do the same thing, well that was until director Damien LeVeck’s The Cleansing Hour. Set in our modem social media and fame hungry society, we follow online ‘exorcist for hire’ Father Max (Ryan Guzman). Max headlines a series of live-streamed exorcisms on his show – The Cleansing Hour, the brain child of Max himself and his best friend Drew (Kyle Gallner). Whilst professing itself as real, the show is in truth one big hoax. That is until the series captures the attention of an actual demon. As the world watches on, Max must do battle with evil for real.