IFI HORRORTHON 2023 PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED

This year’s IFI Horrorthon once again celebrates the most deliciously dark treats to have surfaced in the genre over the last twelve months. This year’s offering includes a number of in-depth documentaries that will thrill fans, as well as rare screenings of classics including Bigas Luna’s Anguish on 35mm and, on its fortieth anniversary, Psycho II, as well as this year’s Secret Film, a fan favourite never before screened in Horrorthon. Irish horror is well represented with Ian Hunt-Duffy’s Double Blind, while the rest of the programme features everything from alligators to zombies. IFI Horrorthon will take place this October from 26th – 30th at the Irish Film Institute, Eustace Street.

Speaking on this year’s line-up, IFI Cinema Programmer Kevin Coyne said, ‘From die-hard gorehounds to those who watch from behind their fingers, this year’s festival has something to entertain and horrify everyone who enjoys this most enduring of genres.’

Tickets on sale now from ifi.ie/horrorthon 

SCHEDULE

THURSDAY

Thurs 26 Oct: WE ARE ZOMBIES (18.30)

FRANÇOIS SIMARD, ANOUK WHISSELL, YOANN-KARL WHISSELL

The new zom-com from the directors of Turbo Kid (2015) imagines a world where the non-threatening ‘living-impaired’ have been integrated into society, before an evil corporation’s dastardly plans lead to chaos.

Thurs 26 Oct: THE HAUNTING (20.30)

ROBERT WISE

Robert Wise’s spine-chilling classic, screening on the occasion of its sixtieth anniversary, has been praised by directors from Spielberg to Scorsese as one of the most frightening films ever made. 

Thurs 26 Oct: SUITABLE FLESH (23.00)

JOE LYNCH

Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton star in this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation written by Dennis Paoli. Fans of his work with Stuart Gordon will know what to expect, and are in for a treat. 

Thurs 26 Oct: THEY WAIT IN THE DARK (23.10)

PATRICK REA

A woman and her young son on the run from her abusive partner hide out in an old farmhouse where a new threat appears in the form of a supernatural presence.

Thurs 26 Oct: RIVER (23.20)

JUNTA YAMAGUCHI

From the director of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020), River is another brilliant mind-bender in which the staff and guests of an inn must escape from a temporal loop.

FRIDAY

Friday 27 Oct: ENTER THE CLONES OF BRUCE (13.20)

DAVID GREGORY

From the director of previous Horrorthon hit documentaries on Al Adamson and Richard Stanley’s Island of Doctor Moreau comes this typically entertaining look at the world of Bruce Lee exploitation films.

Friday 27 Oct: PSYCHO II (15.20)

RICHARD FRANKLIN

Over two decades after audiences first checked in to the Bates Motel, Norman returns home, seemingly cured of his murderous impulses. However, when waitress Mary (Meg Tilly) moves in, ‘Mother’ soon comes calling. 

Friday 27 Oct: MONOLITH (17.40)

MATT VESELY

A disgraced journalist trying to rebuild her career through podcasts is drawn into an alien invasion conspiracy when investigating mysteriously decorated bricks in an increasingly intense and unsettling film.

Friday 27 Oct: THE BLACK MASS (19.40)

DEVANNY PINN

Devanny Pinn’s gritty true-crime horror-thriller covers a 24-hour period on a US college campus in 1978 when a serial killer whose identity becomes apparent stalks and attacks members of a sorority.

Friday 27 Oct: WHAT YOU WISH FOR (21.30)

NICHOLAS TOMNAY

Nick Stahl (Terminator 3, Carnivàle) assumes a friend’s identity to escape gambling debts, an act that puts him in new danger when the ruse works too well in this dark comedy.

Friday 27 Oct: DOUBLE BILL: THE WELL / TRANSMISSION (23.30)

FEDERICO ZAMPAGLIONE / MICHAEL HURST

The Well sees an art restorer suffer an evil curse when bringing a medieval painting to its former glory. Transmission’s clever, interweaving collage sees a channel-surfing viewer realise that humanity is at risk.

Friday 27 Oct: DOUBLE BILL: RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD III / WISHMASTER (23.40)

BRIAN YUZNA / ROBERT KURTZMAN

This double bill evokes the spirit of the heady days of Vestron Video releases with these fan-favourites starring genre staples such as Melinda Clarke, Robert Englund, Ted Raimi, and Angus Scrimm.  

Friday 27 Oct: DOUBLE BILL: THE GHOST WRITER / THE WITCH GAME (23.50)

PAUL WILKINS / FABIÁN FORTE

In The Ghost Writer, a struggling writer resorting to plagiarism must pay an unexpected cost. The Witch Game follows a young woman who can only save her family by learning the secrets of witchcraft.

SATURDAY

Sat 28 Oct: MASTERS OF THE GRIND (12.30)

JASON RUTHERFORD

This epic documentary, almost twenty years in the making, is an exhaustive survey of exploitation cinema featuring a veritable who’s who of alumni from the 42nd Street scene and beyond.

Sat 28 Oct: ALLIGATOR (16.40)

LEWIS TEAGUE

Co-written by John Sayles, Alligator is a witty take on the urban legend of baby alligators flushed down the toilet growing to huge size after exposure to growth hormones flooding through the sewers. 

Sat 28 Oct: MOTHER SUPERIOR (18.40)

MARIE ALICE WOLFSZAHN

A young woman acting as nurse to an ageing baroness whose work on a Nazi breeding programme may solve the mystery of her birth and heritage is drawn deeper into her client’s occult world.

Sat 28 Oct: DOUBLE BLIND (20.20)

IAN HUNT-DUFFY

One of the best Irish genre films of recent years sees Pollyanna McIntosh supervise the trial of an experimental drug that deprives participants, led by Millie Brady, of sleep.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ian Hunt-Duffy, writer Darach McGarrigle, and actor Pollyanna McIntosh.

Sat 28 Oct: HERE FOR BLOOD (22.50)

DANIEL TURRES

A pro-wrestler acting as a stand-in babysitter is forced to defend his charge from a group of masked marauders in a very funny film filled with knowing nods.

Sat 28 Oct: HOW TO KILL MONSTERS (22.50)

STEWART SPARKE

Expanding on the world of Book of Monsters (2018), this not-a-sequel sees its unfortunate cast forced to defend a police station from an attack by a legion of otherworldly monsters.

Sat 28 Oct: CORA (23.00)

SONNY LAGUNA, TOMMY WIKLUND

Decades into the future, after a deadly mist has destroyed the planet and all but annihilated humanity, Cora works for a mysterious organisation striving to undo the mist’s effects.

SUNDAY

Sun 29 Oct: MANCUNIAN MAN: THE LEGENDARY LIFE OF CLIFF TWEMLOW (12.30)

JAKE WEST

This loving tribute to an actor-writer whose career largely consisted of trying to follow the small success of his debut, G.B.H. (1983), makes for entertaining and occasionally melancholy viewing.

Sun 29 Oct: SECRET FILM (15.00)

Over the years, Horrorthon has screened numerous classics of the genre. Sadly, many have been overlooked. This slot attempts to redress the balance by screening an undisputed fan favourite. Come and see.

Sun 29 Oct: BLACK MOLD (17.00)

JOHN PATA

Two photographers whose art involves trespass into abandoned buildings break into an old government testing facility, where they encounter a dangerous derelict and an hallucinogenic mould, with frightening consequences.

Sun 29 Oct: EIGHT EYES (19.00)

AUSTIN JENNINGS

Vinegar Syndrome’s debut production is a dark, disorienting tale of a troubled, travelling couple burdened with an unofficial tour guide. Screening with To Fire You Come at Last, Sean Hogan’s new folk-horror film.

Sun 29 Oct: THE DEEP DARK (21.35)

MATHIEU TURI

A group of miners accompanying a professor (Jean-Hugues Anglade) underground to collect samples are trapped by a cave-in that awakens something in the dark in this claustrophobic chiller.

Sun 29 Oct: MUTE WITNESS (23.35)

ANTHONY WALLER

When Billy (Marina Sudina), a young, mute make-up artist, is inadvertently locked into a Moscow film studio overnight, she witnesses the after-hours production of a snuff movie.

Sun 29 Oct: BEATEN TO DEATH (23.40)

SAM CURTAIN

Jack (Thomas Roach) survives a brutal assault by killing his attacker, only to be found by the dead man’s brother, who now wants to extract a prolonged, bloody vengeance.

Sun 29 Oct: SOCIETY (23.40)

BRIAN YUZNA

Brian Yuzna’s brilliant black comedy, a still-relevant satire of class and the liberties and comforts afforded by wealth, has lost none of its power to shock and disgust.

MONDAY

Mon 30 Oct: THE DARKSIDE OF SOCIETY (13.00)

LARRY WADE CARRELL

This documentary on Brian Yuzna’s film focuses on its writer, Woody Keith, now known as Zeph E. Daniel, and the traumatic upbringing he transformed into an enduring chiller.

Mon 30 Oct: ANGUISH (14.50)

BIGAS LUNA

Screening from 35mm, this overlooked, intricately constructed film from the director of Jamón, Jamón (1992) stars Zelda Rubenstein (Poltergeist, 1982) as an overbearing mother who forces her son (Michael Lerner) to kill.

Mon 30 Oct: THE SEEDING (16.45)

BARNABY CLAY

A photographer lost in the desert seeks refuge in a house at the bottom of a crater. The following morning, he finds himself trapped with its mysterious occupant (Kate Lyn Sheil).

Mon 30 Oct: THE SACRIFICE GAME (18.45)

JENN WEXLER

Christmas, 1971. A quartet of demon-worshipping cult members head for a girls’ boarding school where two students with nowhere to go for the holidays must fight back if they are to survive the night.

Mon 30 Oct: THE MOOR (20.40)

CHRIS CRONIN

A woman haunted by the disappearance of a friend in childhood is persuaded by the missing boy’s desperate father to keep the search alive, enlisting psychics to help search the moors in this eerie film.

IFI is principally funded by the Arts Council.