Sky Sharks To Mutants Frightfest Reveal Their 2020 Digital Line Up
2020 has certainly been a year to forget for many ways. 2020 won’t be the year the dark heart of cinema gives up, it’s the year they go digital! Celebrating its 21st bloody year the UK’s most popular horror and fantasy film festival 2020 Arrow Video Frightfest with a special Digital edition.
Showcasing twenty-five films, Ten countries are represented from four continents in a deadly, daring and diverse programme exclusively presented to UK audiences. Not forgetting seven world premieres and sixteen UK premieres all from the comfort of your own home next month.
The menu of sinister treats and gory delights kicks off on the Thursday night with a Live Streamed Quiz, hosted by Mike Muncer, host and producer of ‘Evolution of Horror’ – the UK’s #1 horror movie podcast. Mike will be putting your horror knowledge to the test. You can play as a team or as an individual. There will be several different rounds of horror and FrightFest-centric questions. Join in the fun at 8pm on the Evolution of Horror YouTube Channel.
If you think you’ve seen every possibility of Shark film, Sky Sharks is the one you forgotten about The jawsome curtain-raising UK premiere years in the epic making, the Nazi zombie piloted killer sharks are finally airborne!
The following day on Friday there are four presentations: the world premiere of pulse-pounding action horror There’s No Such Things As Vampires. Brea Grant’s organ transplant shocker 12 Hour Shift will make it’s UK premiere as does Alastair Orr’s Triggered. Promising to take game-playing to an extreme new level, and finally, Patrick Rea‘s I Am Lisa makes it’s world premiere. The film is a lycanthropic homage to Richard Matheson’s classic novel ‘I Am Legend’ and its 1964 movie adaptation The Last Man on Earth.
Saturday will be deadly with eight choices reflecting the internationally-flavoured line-up. The Netherlands gives us the shockingly fun, pitch black comedy of manners in The Columnist. Ruben Pia’s wonderfully engaging genre documentary Ruben Pia’s The Horror Crowd, will be joined Marcel Walz’s blood-soaked Hollywood nightmare, Blind.
Ground-breaking Australian anthology feature Dark Place (UK Premiere) telling a quintet of indigenous tales with indigenous casts. Canada is represented by the world premiere of the graphic, no-holds barred internet chiller Don’t Click. We then go back to the US for a a tense Fatal Attraction meets Black Mirror sci-fi horror, with the UK premiere of mind-bending The Honeymoon Phase.
The festival hasn’t forgotten about local talent with two ‘First Blood’ world premiere entries. First up will be a fairytale for adults They’re outside starring FrightFest favourites, Emily Booth and Nicholas Vince. Playhouse is Toby and Fionn Watts debut a moody, haunted Scottish castle mystery.
Sunday might be lazy for some, Frightfest Sunday will be carnage, with cannibalism and contagion spread through the day’s line-up. The brilliant Two Heads Creek is a cannibal comedy from Jesse O’Brien, executed in the best old school Ozploitation tradition. Aquaslash is a mad slasher from the director of Discopath. Even more blood is spilled as a slaughter spree of mystically epic proportions has to be solved in Armando Fonseca’s Skull: The Mask. Evil Dead fans are served a treat with the international premiere of Steve Villeneuve’s documentary Hail To The Deadites, which explores the classic franchise’s undying and ever-growing popularity.
How to escape an insidious virus is the challenge for two women in the world premiere of Francesco Giannini’s Hall. With many of us still facing the frustration of a lockdown, they’ll be a panel hosted by Den Of Greek UK editor Rosie Fletcher. special guests from the industry will discuss how the horror genre has been affected by the global pandemic. The struggles of the low-budget film industry are highlighted in Clapboard Jungle: Surviving The Independent Film Business is a fascinating insight into the life and career of independent filmmaker Justin McConnell (Lifechanger). If you missed FrightFest Glasgow 2019 breakout hit A Ghost Waits, here’s a chance to see the ghostly romance in a new cut.
Everything comes bloody climax in in breathless, fast-paced, tradition with five UK premieres. AV: The Hunt is a grisly, hard-boiled honour killer thriller. Dean Kapsalis’ feature debut The Swerve , offers a shimmering American take on Michael Haneke-style torment. French anthology Dark Stories offers five tales of gripping terror, a savagely manipulative indictment of the internet courtesy of Tyler Savage’s Blinders. Finally mutant sci-fi thrills in the X-Men tradition in Enhanced.
Arrow Video will present one of their popular podcasts with illustrious co-hosts – filmmaker and journalist Sam Ashurst and SFX guru Dan Martin. The Short Film Showcases are back and will be available to watch on demand.
Festival co-director, Alan Jones, said today: “We will desperately miss seeing all of you in person this August Bank Holiday but are looking forward to our virtual connection where we can say hello to the best family in the world, the FrightFest community. And if you’ve never experienced a FrightFest before, and have always yearned to join in with the fear, fun and fabulousness now is your chance to find out what you’ve been missing for 21 years”.
Before you ask, All film screenings will be geo-locked to UK audiences and only accessible from within the United Kingdom.
2020 Arrow Video Frightfest will run from Thursday 27th August to Monday 31st August.
Passes and tickets will go on sale Saturday 1 August and details on how to access the event and choose which films to watch are on the FrightFest website – www.frightfest.co.uk.
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