In less than a week our amigos y familia at Morbido will be hosting the sixteenth edition of their famed genre film festival. This year genre icons Eli Roth and Ted Raimi will be attending the festival to present their films, Thanksgiving and Failure! respectively.
Festival alumni Gigi Saul Guerrero will be in town to present V/H/S/85 and LG White will be back to present her doc, Tripping the Dark Fantastic, the documentary about composer Simon Boswell with performance footage and interviews with the likes of Argento and Jorodowsky.
Carlota Pereda's new film, The Chapel, is a must-see part of the program as is Demian Rugna's When Evil Lurks. Don't miss Weston Razooli's Riddle of Fire either.
Morbido Film Fest Celebrates 16 years with Eli Roth and Ted Raimi visiting Mexico City.Mórbido Film Fest will be held from October 31th until November 12 2023.This year, Morbido celebrates its first 16 years and does so with a grand selection of feature films and short films from the whole world, with 1 World Premiere and 18 Latin American Premieres whose world premieres where held at some of the most important film festivals in the world such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto, Sundance, SXSW and Sitges.As tradition dictates, the festival's official artwork is an original piece by maestro RAFEL GALLUR, the Mexican graphic novel legend who evokes a demon in the process of gestation, representing the Festival's process of ongoing reinvention as a project, foreshadowing the festival's massive changes in 2024 .We are pleased to announce that thanks to Sony Pictures and Spyglass Media we will be hosting a special screening for “THANKSGIVING” with Director Eli Roth in attendance who will visit Mexico to introduce his new film, which represents his return to genre motion pictures. In 2007, Roth directed and provided voice over narration for the fake “Thanksgiving” trailer for “Grindhouse” and guest starred in Quentin Tarantino's “Death Proof” segment. Now, this fake trailer has become a reality and Morbido fans will be able to be the first to enjoy it.We will also have with us legendary character actor Ted Raimi, a horror icon whose body of work includes Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn”, “Army of Darkness', “The Midnight Meat Train” and “Candyman”. As an actor he is on the cutting edge exploring narrative possibilities within the genre, such as his participation in the horror video game “The Quarry” where advanced motion capture techniques have been employed to bring his character of “Sheriff Hackett” to life in this multiple choice narrative game. Now, Ted Rami returns as the lead of FAILURE! by Alex Kahuam.Morbido Film Fest guest list for feature length films includes: Eli Roth, Ted Raimi, LG White, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Alex Kahuam, Luis Javier Henaine, Leopoldo Laborde, Alex Arguelles and José Sierra.As for short film guests will be in attendance: Lex Ortega, Ramon Medina, Tim Luna, Sid Galvan, David Cordoba and Ana Victoria Mendez.The Complete Morbido Film Fest programming comprises 68 Short Films, 11 of them Mexican, 46 Feature Length Films from 16 countries of which 16 of them are from Mexico.Morbido Film Fest 2023 venues in Mexico City will be located at: Cinepolis Diana, thanks to the joint efforts with Sala de Arte Cinépolis®, Cinemanía, Tonalá Cinema, as well as Digital Cultural Center and FAROS Network (Arts and Crafts Factory) Aragón, Azcapotzalco, Cosmos, Indios Verdes, Miacatlán and Tecomitl.Mórbido Film Fest appreciates the support of the City's Secretariat of Culture, the Trust for the Promotion and Development of Mexican Cinema in Mexico City, PROCINECDMX, Cinépolis and Sala de Arte Cinépolis®, Cinemanía, Cine Tonalá, Mórbido TV, Mantícora and BTF.Morbido Film Fest would like to thank the support of Mexico City's Culture Bureau, the fund for Promotion and development for Mexican Cinema, PROCINE CDMX, Cinépolis and Arthouse Cinépolis®, Cinemanía, Tonalá Cinema, Morbido TV, Manticora and BTF.MORBIDO FILM FEST 2023OFFICIAL SELECTIONGLOBAL SELECTIONBLOODY BRIDGET / Richard Elfman / 2023USAMexican premiereBridget is a waitress and burlesque dancer in Van Nuys and has the power to be a Valentine's Day Vampire. Blood tastes good, but it is not enough: it must feast on the hearts of evildoers.CONCRETE UTOPIA / Tae-hwa Eom / 2023South KoreaLatin American PremiereA devastating earthquake reduces Seoul to rubble, with the exception of a single skyscraper, which presides over the city center. Soon, adverse living conditions draw survivors to the building, only to discover that its residents have barricaded themselves inside, and have no intention of letting them pass.WHEN THE MASTER SLEEPS/ Santiago Alvarado Ilarri / 2023SpainLatin American PremiereVictor is a vampire who only feeds on the blood of evil people, and whose lands have been cared for by Samuel's family, generation after generation, with dedication and devotion. However, everything is about to change: while Samuel and his wife Lourdes grow frustrated at the impossibility of having a baby, an enigmatic vampire arrives to visit.DIVINITY / Eddie Alcazar / 2023USAMexican premiereSterling Pierce dedicated his life to the pursuit of immortality, slowly creating the building blocks of a serum called "Divinity." His son now controls and manufactures his father's once benevolent dream. The society of this sterile planet has been totally perverted by the supremacy of drugs, whose true origins are shrouded in mystery. Two brothers arrive with a plan to kidnap the tycoon and, with the help of a seductive woman named Nikita, they set out towards true immortality.EIGHT EYES / Austin Jennings / 2023USALatin American PremiereAt the breaking point of their marriage, Cass and Gav embark on a trip through Serbia. After meeting a local who offers to be their guide, the couple embarks on a sightseeing expedition that soon takes a series of sinister turns.EL HOMBRE DEL SACO (THE BAG MAN) / Ángel Gómez Hernández / 2023SpainLatin American PremiereExplore the Spanish origins of the character's story, who is a tuberculosis patient from Almeria willing to do anything to cure himself, even consuming the blood of the children he kidnaps.ALL FUN AND GAMES / Eren Celeboglu and Ari Costa / 2023USALatin American PremiereA group of Salem teenagers discover a cursed knife that unleashes a demon that forces them to play gruesome and deadly versions of children's games in which there can be no winners, only survivors.LA ERMITA / Carlota Pereda / 2023SpainLatin American PremiereEmma wants to learn to communicate with the spirit of a girl who has been trapped in her town's hermitage for centuries. He tries to convince Carol, an unbelieving and false medium, to teach him how to talk to ghosts. Your help will be the only way to remain united with her sick mother when she dies.LAST STRAW / Alan Scott Neal / 2023USALatin American PremiereA young waitress must fight for her life over the course of a long night.MELCHIOR THE APOTHECARY / Elmo Nüganen / 2022EstoniaMexican PremiereIn medieval Tallinn, the famous knight of the Order who liberated the Baltic Sea from pirates is murdered. The Sheriff orders Melchor, who can talk to the dead, to investigate the crime.MOON GARDEN / Ryan Stevens Harris / 2022USAMexican PremiereA comatose five-year-old girl travels through an industrial wonderland to find her way back to consciousness.PANDEMONIUM / Quarxx / 2023FranceMexican PremiereAfter realizing that he has died at the scene of a car accident, Nathan descends into the depths of hell, where he is condemned to experience the pain of souls tortured along the way.QUANTUM SUICIDE / Gerrit Van Woudenberg / 2023CanadaLatin American PremiereA reclusive physicist builds a particle accelerator in his garage and embarks on a quest to understand the nature of reality.RIDDLE OF FIRE / Weston Razooli / 2023USALatin American PremiereThis fairy tale follows three mischievous children who embark on an odyssey when their mother asks them to run an errand. While hunting for their favorite blueberry pie, the boys are kidnapped by bandits, fight a witch, outwit a hunter, befriend a fairy, and become best friends forever.SHE IS CONANN / Bertrand Mandico / 2023FranceLatin American PremiereRainer, the Hound of the Underworld, chronicles the six lives of Conann, perpetually doomed to death for her own future, across eras, myths, and ages.SLEEP / Jason Yu / 2023South KoreaMexico City PremiereA pregnant woman worries about her husband's sleeping habits. What begins as light sleep talk soon turns into unexpectedly grotesque behavior and they desperately seek the help of a shaman.SLOTHERHOUSE / Matthew Goodhue / 2023USALatin American PremiereEmily Young wants to be elected president of her sorority. She adopts a sloth, thinking it can become her new pet and help her win, until a series of deaths implicate the sloth as the prime suspect.THE VOURDALAK / Adrien Beau / 2023FranceLatin American PremiereAn adaptation of 'The Family of the Vurdalak' by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy. Lost in a hostile forest, the Marquis of Urfé, a noble emissary of the King of France, finds refuge in the home of a mysterious family hiding a terrifying secret.TIGER STRIPES / Amanda Nell Eu / 2023MalaysiaLatin American PremiereA 12-year-old girl fights puberty by discovering a terrifying secret about her physique. Her failed attempts to hide the inevitable lead her friends to discover who she really is, and they attack her for it.THANKSGIVING / Eli Roth / 2023USASpecial Gala ScreeningAfter the Black Friday riots end in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts, the birthplace of the infamous holiday.V/H/S/85 / Gigi Saul Guerrero, Scott Derrickson, Mike P. Nelson, David Bruckner and Natasha Kermani / 2023USALatin American PremiereThrough a made-for-television documentary, five found-footage horror stories are revealed that take viewers on a terrifying journey through the grim underbelly of the 1980s.LATIN AMERICAN SELECTIONAUXILIO / Tamae Garateguy / 2023ArgentinaMexican PremiereEmilia is a rebellious girl whose family puts her in a hospice for the mentally ill run by nuns. Paranormal forces begin to accumulate among the saints and the tortured.CELESTE SOLEDAD / Alex Argüelles / 2022MexicoMexico City PremiereCeleste and Soledad, two sisters who can't stand each other, are forced to live together after the tragic death of their parents at the hands of drug trafficking. Celeste plunges into a deep depression while Soledad suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, hidden until now, which will lead her through increasingly darker and more sinister labyrinths.WHEN EVIL LURKS / Demián Rugna / 2023ArgentinaMexican PremiereIn a remote village, two brothers find a man infected by the devil about to give birth to the evil itself. They decide to get rid of the man, but only manage to spread chaos.DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY / Luis Javier Henaine / 2022MexicoMexico City PremiereAfter visiting a crime scene, the ambitious and callous photographer for a tabloid newspaper falls seriously ill.FAILURE! / Alex Kahuam / 2023MexicoLatin American PremiereIt follows a man who is given one hour to choose between financial ruin or murder to protect his family.ICTUS: PACIENTE CERO / Leopoldo Laborde / 2023MexicoWorld PremiereA meat company tries to hide an infection in its products, but plots revenge on a partner. This man is taken to an apparent clinic, where the medical team ignores what is happening and they and their patients must survive the consequences of the contagion.INVOKING YELL / Patricio Valladares / 2023ChiliMexican PremiereA trio of twenty-something metalheads head into the woods to record their demo tape for their black metal band, Invoking Yell.THE OTHER SHAPE / Diego Felipe Guzman / 2022Colombia, BrazilMexican PremierePeter Press has been living with a press for 20 years and has completed his squaring process. But an incident forces him to take off the press and take a different form.MY TEACHER ATE MY FRIEND / José Sierra / 2023MexicoTomás is a boy who is a fan of monster stories and, together with his friends, they face the greatest adventure of his life. The boys seek to discover the secrets of their new English teacher who appears to be a monster that eats children.PROPERTY / Daniel Bandeira / 2022BrazilMexican PremiereTo protect herself from a revolt by workers on her family's farm, a female inmate locks herself in her own armored car. Separated by a layer of glass, two universes are about to collide.MORBIDOCS SECTIONSATAN WANTS YOU / Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor / 2023USALatin American PremiereThe film depicts the Satanic Panic hoax of the early 1980s, focusing in particular on the story of the discredited book Michelle Remembers.SCALA!!! OR, THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE RISE AND FALL OF THE WORLD'S WILDEST CINEMA AND HOW IT INFLUENCED A MIXED-UP GENERATION OF WEIRDOS AND MISFITS / A. CATTERALL, J. GILES / 2023UKLatin American PremiereDuring the turbulent "Thatcher years" of post-punk Britain, over a million people from across the UK passed through the doors of the Scala cinema.For 15 glorious years, he inspired an entire generation with his iconic monthly repertory shows, ranging from high art classics to sexploitation, horror, Kung Fu and LGBTQ+ in daily changing double features and unforgettable All-Nighters.THE HISTORY OF METAL AND HORROR / Mike Schiff / 2022USALatin American PremiereDocumentary that explores the intersections between two genres belonging to artistic disciplines as different as cinema and music: horror and heavy metal. To do this, it has outstanding personalities from both worlds, be they John Carpenter, Alice Cooper or Dave Mustaine (and even a master in their hybridization like Rob Zombie), who weave a network of surprising affinities.THE J-HORROR VIRUS / Sarah Appleton and Jasper Sharp / 2023UKMexican PremiereThis documentary investigates the history of what was the first great trend in horror cinema of the 21st century, j-horror, from its unknown origins to great works of the genre such as The Ring (1998) and Ju-on (2002). ).TRIPPING THE DARK FANTASTIC / LG White / 2022USALatin American PremiereIt combines a fantastic live performance from composer Simon Boswell and his 12-piece band Caduta Massi, with interviews from artists he has collaborated with, such as Dario Argento, Alejandro Jodorowsky and more."LEOPOLDO LABORDE" RETROSPECTIVETHE CAT / Leopoldo Laborde / 1992NATHAEL / Leopoldo Laborde / 1993CHILD'S PLAY / Leopoldo Laborde / 1995UTOPIA 7 / Leopoldo Laborde / 1995ANGELUZ / Leopoldo Laborde / 1998WITHOUT DESTINATION / Leopoldo Laborde / 2002THE RETURN / Leopoldo Laborde / 2008BROKEN SKIN / Leopoldo Laborde / 2014EXPIRES / Leopoldo Laborde / 2020MORBITO SECTIONMY TEACHER ATE MY FRIEND/ José Sierra / 2023MexicoTomás is a boy who is a fan of monster stories and, together with his friends, they face the greatest adventure of his life. The boys seek to discover the secrets of their new English teacher who appears to be a monster that eats children.MOON GARDEN / Ryan Stevens Harris / 2022USAA comatose five-year-old girl travels through an industrial wonderland to find her way back to consciousness.RIDDLE OF FIRE / Weston Razooli / 2023USAThis fairy tale follows three mischievous children who embark on an odyssey when their mother asks them to run an errand. While hunting for their favorite blueberry pie, the boys are kidnapped by bandits, fight a witch, outwit a hunter, befriend a fairy, and become best friends forever.A COSTUME FOR NICOLAS / Eduardo Rivero / 2020MexicoNicolás is a boy whose mother left a trunk full of costumes, where he finds a portal to a kingdom of dreams that he will have to save.A KINGDOM OF OUR OWN / Miguel Ángel Uriegas / 2023MexicoFran and her sister Serendin live in the Great Slum and dream of one day traveling to The Kingdom, an earthly paradise protected behind enormous walls. To get there, they have to do something that many have tried but only a few have managed: smuggle in the Beast, a legendary creature that merchants use to transport goods to The Kingdom. When they finally decide to do it, an accident occurs and Fran is separated from Serendin. Brother and sister will embark on an adventure to find each other and, at the same time, find themselves.“Each year genre cinema gains more relevance and increases its cultural footprint among other film spaces where it seemed like it had no place, I'm pleased and proud to celebrate our first 16 years by bringing to Morbido's audience a carefully curated selection comprised of the best that genre cinema can offer in 2023” José Luis Mejia.