4. Horror Channel FrightFest // London, U.K. // August 2018
Spawned by Paul McEvoy, Ian Rattray and renowned U.K. critic Alan Jones, who continues to spearhead its curation, London’s FrightFest came onto the scene to compete with market frontrunners in Europe, Sitges and Brussels. Today, it’s “the premiere U.K. festival for genre cinema,” declares a panelist, who emphasizes that “inclusion in the program can help to secure a U.K. release.” Now-timeless modern classics like Neil Marshall’s The Descent (2005) were first discovered at FrightFest, and Guillermo del Toro dubbed it “The Woodstock of Gore” when he took Pan’s Labyrinth there for its first post-Cannes screening in 2006. Beyond its main event, FrightFest is also an event-heavy three-ring circus of sorts: A three-day Scottish mini-festival (part of the Glasgow Film Festival each February), a five-day, 60-plus film buffet each August in Leicester Square of London’s West End, and a Halloween bash with the largest screen in London’s Empire Haymarket Cinema reserved each October, the thrills and chills barely stop before they start right back up again.
Horror Channel FrightFest 2017 invades Cineworld Leicester Square, London. (Cue religious outrage.) Photograph by Julie Edwards
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