It’s not yet September, but it already feels like Halloween, thanks to the release of Darren Aronofksy’s Mother! and a remake of Stephen King’s It. And Pennywise isn’t the only scary clown on the loose– Insane Clown Posse is coming to (gasp!) Williamsburg (“Williamsburg Psych Ward” is going to kill). Now there’s even more scare in the air, thanks to these two film festivals– the first of which was announced today.
Brooklyn Horror Film Festival
Oct. 12 to 15 at Alamo Drafthouse and other venues to be announced.
This fright fest debuted last year and now returns with a marathon screening of the Friday the 13th movies at Videology. Oh, but that’s just the start of it. The fest is highlighting new horror from all over the world, with a special focus on Mexico (“no wall crossing required,” the press release assures). The sequel to 2014 anthology film Mexico Barbaro promises to touch on “cannibalism, porn, and historical demons,” and Veronica is described as an “erotically charged mystery” about a shrink treating a patient– in the middle of the woods, of course. In addition, there’ll be entrants in the tried-and-true genres of found footage (Victor Dryere’s 1974), horror-comedy (Tragedy Girls, produced by Craig Robinson of The Office), body horror (Graham Skipper’s Sequence Break), and hauntings (Cecilia Cartasegna’s Clementina and Lukas Fiegelfeld’s Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse). Directors will be making appearances after many of the screenings, in case you need to be talked out of the rafters.
Miskatonic University
Sept. 2 to 30 at Nitehawk, Williamsburg.
H.P. Lovecraft was a bit of a racist, but “his influence is as far reaching as the tentacles of Cthulu or the Great ‘Old Ones,'” writes Nitehawk in an introduction to its new series dedicated to Lovecraftian films. What exactly makes them Lovecraftian? “They reveal to us the parallel worlds, the worlds that contain deep, primal fears, that exist adjacent to our own.” Among the spine-tinglers being screened around midnight on Fridays and Saturdays in September are big hits like Ghostbusters and The Cabin in the Woods, but also lesser-known works like The Void; a “psychedelic” 1970 version of Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”; and In the Mouth of Madness, a John Carpenter film replete with Lovecraft references, about a Stephen King-esque horror writer who holds murderous sway over his fans. Lovecraft t-shirt giveaways will entice you to stay up past the witching hour.
Correction: A previous version of this post misidentified a Wes Craven tribute as part of Brooklyn Horror Festival’s past programming.