7. Overlook Film Festival // Mt. Hood, Oregon // April 2018

There’s lots of work, but plenty of play and never a dull moment at The Overlook Film Festival, a four-day snowbound celebration of scare cinema held at Oregon’s Timberline Lodge—better known as the ominous exterior hotel of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Badge holders have the distinct privilege of playing “The Game”—Overlook’s real-life horror mystery that lasts throughout the festival, and whose story is kept secret until your arrival. Formerly the Stanley Film Festival, held at the Colorado hotel that Stephen King based his Shining novel upon, Overlook’s new digs are “more remote,” says one panelist who “not coincidentally” shot a miniseries at the fest’s former location, but “because now you don’t leave the hotel, you’re even more immersed in a manse filled with like-minded horror film fans.”