Now that we have entered full-on into the spooky season festivals around this time of year are some of your best bets to get into that holiday mood. Our friends at Mayhem have just announced the full lineup for this year's edition; it promises a weekend full of thrills and chills.
Already announced was the festival's participation in BFI's In Dreams Are Monsters program this year. The festivals also announced Argento's Dark Glasses and the UK premiere of Jethica were the first films programmed this year.
Current festival faves include The Harbinger, Huesera, Unicorn Wars, Freaks Out, and Watcher. The festival is hosting a number of indie genre flicks and more repetoire screenings as well. The full lineup can be found in the festival's announcement below. Links of our coverage of some of these films can also be found at the bottom of the article.
Mayhem Film Festival full line-up now confirmedMayhem Film Festival returns to Broadway Cinema, Nottingham this October and the full line-up has been announcedWith a number of UK premieres, archive screenings and even live music, fans of cult, sci-fi and horror from around the world are in for a treat when the curtains go up at Broadway Cinema, Nottingham this October.The festival begins on Thursday 13 October with low-budget British werewolf film Wolf Manor, and we’re delighted to welcome Director Dominic Brunt and star Rupert Proctor to the Mayhem stage for a post-screening Q&A. The opening night finishes with a screening of Dario Argento’s latest giallo Dark Glasses - his first film in ten years - in which a blind sex worker is left responsible for an orphaned boy as a serial killer attempts to hunt them down.On Friday 14 October, Mayhem delves into the archives for a rare screening of The Appointment, the Edward Woodward-starring supernatural shocker from 1982, and then it’s time to get your coat hangers ready for the dive-bombing birds of Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle. A UK premiere, this third and final instalment in the Birdemic franchise features an ecological message alongside those long, long, walks on the beach.We continue into the evening with Quentin Dupiex’s cracked-sitcom, sci-fi tale Incredible But True, as a couple look for the home of their dreams and come across a house with a surprising selling point in its basement.We finish Friday with the critically acclaimed Mexican supernatural body horror Huesera, in which a mother discovers that the miracle of pregnancy isn’t all that she dreamed of.Saturday’s line-up starts with an ultra-violent, bloody clash between teddy bears and unicorns in animated fantasy Unicorn Wars, and continues with Eddie Marsan and Raffiella Chapman in sci-fi adventure Vesper, as a 13-year old fends for her injured father and fights for survival amongst a collapsed ecosystem.The festival continues into the evening with the always popular Mayhem Short Film Showcase, with the best new horror talent from across the world on the big screen.We then take a feline turn with BFI Film Audience Network (BFI FAN) supported, “Night of the Cat”. Supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network, “Night of the Cat” one of four special commissions by leading horror film festivals around the UK, will take over Broadway’s purr-fect Screen 1 with two rare film screenings Kaneto Shindo’s 1968 Japanese horror film Kuroneko (translated as The Black Cat) will open the night and will be accompanied by a kaleidoscopic live original score from Nottingham-based artist Yumah (aka Lucy Morrow). Then in Mayhem’s late-night cult slot, a 30th anniversary screening of Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers from 1992 will continue the cat theme into the night.We're starting off the final day of the festival with Freaks Out, from Mayhem favourite Gabriele Mainetti. A genre-defying take on the superhero film, Freaks Out pits a group of bizarre circus performers against the Nazis that have captured their mentor.We then move on to the UK premiere of Jethica - a smart, deadpan ghost story that twists the crazed stalker genre on its head.Director Andy Mitten, who had great success at Mayhem 2018 with The Witch in the Window, returns with The Harbinger, an ambitiously scary film set during lockdown where isolation leads to very bad dreams that are starting to spread.No Looking Back is another violent, action-packed and whiplash-fast film from the makers of huge Mayhem hit Why Don’t You Just Die!The final film of Mayhem 2022 is the scary and stylish Watcher starring Maika Monroe (the star of It Follows) as a young American woman who suspects the man watching her from across the building is a serial killer, decapitating local women.If you still haven’t got your passes, then we’re pleased to announce that a limited number of full festival passes are still on sale for £85, and individual tickets will be available from Wednesday 14 September. Frankenstein ticket packages will also be available on this date for £35. The Frankenstein ticket package is exclusively available at the Broadway box office and allows you to build your own film festival with any five films for £35.Visit broadway.org.uk/mayhem2022 to find out more and book.