Now in its ninth edition, New York’s top festival for quality horror from around the globe is back with a vengeance. Scary Movies 9 runs from October 30 through November 5.
This year’s fright fest includes 12 of the best new titles out there, including Sean Byrne’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to The Loved Ones, The Devil’s Candy, and the gut-wrenching Australian feral-dog thriller The Pack, plus horror movies of all stripes from Ireland, Denmark, Spain, and Turkey. Revival offerings include Juan Piquer Simón’s ’80s cult classics Pieces and Slugs, and in tribute to the dearly departed Christopher Lee, a 35mm screening of the Hammer gem The Gorgon. They will also be presenting evenings with Larry Fessenden, whose company Glass Eye Pix is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and Bernard Rose, whose new film, Frankenstein, a wildly original update set on the streets of L.A., closes this year’s festival with large doses of both heart and gore. On Opening Night, you’ll begin your journey into nightmare with Southbound, an anthology road film from some of the key players behind V/H/S, followed by a blow-out Halloween bash where prizes will be given for the best costume.
Other films include:
Baskin: Five cops on night patrol stumble into charnel house and descend into an ever-more nightmarish netherworld of grotesque, mind-wrenching horrors in this truly disturbing, outrageously gory, and increasingly surreal film that pulls the carpet from under your feet and keep you guessing right up to the final moment.
Cherry Tree: Just as 15-year-old Faith learns that her sick father has only a few months to live, her new hockey coach reveals that she’s the leader of a coven of witches and has the power to cure her dad if she agrees to bear a very special child for her—a proposition that sets in motion Faith’s nightmarish downward spiral.
The Devil’s Candy: Sean Byrne’s highly anticipated follow-up to The Loved Ones is another masterwork of housebound terror, in which a struggling artist and his devoted wife and daughter move into a new place, unaware that its previous occupant is a royally disturbed—and potentially possessed—child-killer who wants his home back.
Emelie: On their parents’ anniversary, three children are left home alone with the new replacement babysitter, whose behavior becomes increasingly menacing as the evening unfolds. A bloodcurdling mash-up of the bad-babysitter and home-invasion subgenres, Emelie is every parent’s worst nightmare.
Frankenstein: In conjunction with Lincoln Center’s campus-wide Halloween celebration for kids we offer a free screening of this monster-movie classic, which has gone down in cinema history for its iconic Boris Karloff performance, groundbreaking makeup, and, of course, the immortal line, “It’s alive!” Free family screening.
The Gorgon: In tribute to the late, great Christopher Lee, we present a 35mm screening of Hammer’s gothic horror mystery that transports one of the most memorable monsters from Greek mythology to turn-of-the-century middle Europe. Lee appears alongside Peter Cushing and Barbara Shelley as a professor who travels to the village of Vandorf to investigate a series of deaths in which the victims are turned to stone.
The Hallow: Employing impressive old-school effects, this intense, folklore-steeped monster-movie tour de force follows a scientist and his family deep into the Irish forest on assignment. He disregards the warnings of the townspeople and an alarming early discovery, and, as can be expected, things go very, very wrong—especially when the titular woodland creatures come out to play.
Click here for a full list of films and ticket pricing.