Which Horror Channel FrightFest Film 2016 Is For You?

The Southern Gothic progeny of CAPE FEAR, NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and OLDBOY, director Sean Brosnan’s powerful feature debut is a brutal and beautiful revenge thriller. Asher loses both his speech and hearing during an attack that leaves his brother dead. The assassin? Asher’s own father, Ivan, a tattooed monster showing no remorse. Jailed for the assault, but released two decades later due to prison overcrowding, pumped-up Asher wastes no time in seeking the ultimate retribution.

Best-selling horror author Stephen King brings his acclaimed apocalyptic nightmare to the big screen. When a powerful signal is broadcast across mobile networks worldwide, every cell phone user’s mind is re-programmed turning them all into instant zombie killers. With civilization crumbling as the bloodthirsty ‘phoners’ take over, artist Clay Riddell heads north through New England in search of his family. Joined by a group of survivors hoping to fend off the hyper-connected horde amidst the total chaos, they learn of The Raggedy Man and his sinister flock in their desperation to discover why the world is going violently insane.

Horror icon and hard rocker Rob Zombie returns with an ultra-violent grindhouse infused slasher directed with his inimitable balls-to-the-wall style and extreme fan-boy sensibility. A camper van of carnival workers are kidnapped in the middle of nowhere by a trio of debauched decadents. Set loose in a derelict factory compound full of creepy passages containing nasty traps, the abductors led by Father Murder place bets on who will survive the longest in a 12-hour period of pain and maim against an array of sadistic clowns with such clear-cut nicknames as Psycho-Head, Sick-Head, Death-Head and Sex-Head. You have been warned!

The fantasy genre returned to the top of the Italian box-office this year with director Gabriele Mainetti’s wonderful combo of DEADPOOL and THE TOXIC AVENGER creating a splendid Spaghetti superhero. Small-time crook Enzo uses the superpowers gained after falling in the contaminated River Tiber to take revenge on The Gypsy, a deranged gangster causing criminal chaos in Rome. When he falls in love with unstable Alessia, who brightens her dark world with vintage episodes of the Japanese anime TV series ‘Jeeg Robot’, Enzo learns the value of what it means to help others and become a cosmopolitan role model.

All aboard the horror express as the Cannes 2016 Midnight Movie sensation pulls into FrightFest! An action-packed zombie thrill-ride with social bite, a mysterious viral outbreak pushes Korea into a state of emergency. The government declares martial law just as divorced Seok-woo and his daughter catch the KTX from Seoul Station to Busan to see her mother. But someone on the journey has been recently infected sending the hurtling carriages into complete chaos. As the living dead transform the voyage into a nightmare excursion, father and daughter must fight for survival if they are to make it out alive.

The cleverest, funniest, sharpest most Meta horror ever is a continual genre buff’s delight. Watch in gleeful shock as delusional crowd-funder Herbert Blount (an extraordinary Penn Jillette) creates his own ‘Director’s Cut’ out of KNOCKED OFF, the Adam Rifkin crime thriller you never saw. By recutting, splicing newly shot amateur scenes into the narrative with kidnapped star Missi Pyle, making up another plot and commenting on other actors and scenes in voiceover, the madman thinks he’s creating a unique masterpiece. Which director Rifkin has with this stunning tour-de-force that becomes a hugely enjoyable sly satire of the entire entertainment industry.

Sandra is test-driving her new car through the desert. It’s the hi-tech, computer controlled, sci-fi sleek, safest SUV ever created - the Monolith. Then a call casts suspicion on her philandering husband and she heads home to Los Angeles with her two-year-old child Daniel strapped into the back seat playing games on her smartphone. When she hits a deer in the road, and checks for damage, Daniel accidentally touches the mobile app locking her outside and trapping him inside the impenetrable vehicle. Fasten your seat belts for a nerve-shredding suspense ride as Sandra’s anxiety mounts and the nightmare scenario escalates.

Following their father’s mysterious disappearance, two estranged brothers reunite to liquidate his business, a video store specialising in horror movies. Digging through all the fire sale stock, they find an old VCR board game entitled ‘Beyond the Gates’. Deciding to play the obscure game for a laugh, they soon realise it holds the connection to their father’s vanishing and the deadliest of consequences for anyone who dares fool around with it. The highly anticipated debut from Jackson Stewart, former assistant to Stuart Gordon, and co-written with Stephen Scarlata (JODOROWSKY’S DUNE), this throwback paranormal fantasy also features horror legend Barbara Crampton.