Paul Cotgrove, Director and creator of Horror-On-Sea<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The frightening festival kicks off on Friday 12th of Januray with the anthology feature The Monster Mash <\/em>(2022), hosted by Dr Fruedstein and his sidekick Ludwig. The triple-bill celebrates the glory days of Americana creature features with a reliance on old-school practical special effects. Then mystery and memory collide with the Argentinian film Memories of Evil <\/em>(2022) after a nurse discovers her patient may not be suffering from amnesia and is drawn into a terrifying nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tundra settings have been popular in horror and Blood and Snow<\/em> (2022) offers a new entry of blood-soaked snow from Canada, when a meteorite impact infects a scientist with horrifying consequences. An American couple will enter the former Yugoslavia and also the grainy world of 70s horror films with Eight Eyes <\/em>(2023) when a seemingly helpful tour guide will drag them into a surreal and creepy underworld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is also a world premiere of epic proportions, as a cop battles warriors, robots and ruthless henchmen in Axel Falcon<\/em> (2024). From Britain\u00b4s Bazz Hancher, this film promises sci-fi fun and thrills as the titular hero takes on a host of enemies in his quest for justice. The evening closes with the UK premiere of Hell Nurse<\/em> (2022), an exploitation slasher involving satanic pacts and revenge as surgical instruments send the criminals running and the blood flying.<\/p>\n\n\n HellNurse<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each film is also accompanied by short films drawn from around the world. Spanish horror is well represented with four films, including an animation set in the biggest evil factory in hell. French film Welcome to Candy\u00b4s <\/em>documents a date gone wrong when a beautiful influencer is not all she seems, while The Walking Corpse Syndrome<\/em> from Finland is a contemplative look at Cotard\u00b4s syndrome featuring a skeleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saturday 13th will showcase the best and bloodiest of Britain with several features from the UK. A demon is accidentally summoned during film production and The Haunted Studio<\/em> (2023) will capture it all, while a blood cult gets more than they bargain for when they pick the wrong female victim in I am Rage <\/em>(2023). The dark and gritty Watch me Sleep <\/em>(2023) will place a camera inside a coffin as a son deals with the death of his mother. <\/p>\n\n\n WatchmeSleep<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, two world premieres will round off the evening, with slasher anthology Mosaic <\/em>(2024) taking a giallo-inflected look at ten killers and one detective, as horror cult actor Simon Bamford (Hellraiser<\/em>) takes on killer teddy bears, a teleporting Santa and an axe-wielding mad woman. Then finishing the evening is Terrorise <\/em>(2024), as criminals and cops play a deadly cat-and-mouse game following an escape from prison.<\/p>\n\n\n Terrorise<\/p>\n\n\n\n No horror festival can stray too far from the cosmological tentacles of H.P. Lovecraft and Saturday also has enough in store to satisfy fans of the weird. H.P. Lovecraft\u00b4s The Old Ones <\/em>(2023) is a new feature film that returns the cult of Dagon to the silver screen, while short film H.P. Lovecraft\u00b4s The Lurking Fear <\/em>adapts the short story that sees a group take shelter for a night in an aristocratic mansion they believe is abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There will also be plenty more short films on offer with more meteor madness (Belgium\u00b4s Slime<\/em>), a creepy doll in the woods (USA\u00b4s The Doll Catcher<\/em>), a grindhouse blizzard (USA\u00b4s Honeymoon at Cold Hollow), a menacing figure only visible to one (Spain\u00b4s Pisanka<\/em>), and of course the latest British offerings with a psychological challenge in the woods (Don\u00b4t React<\/em>), strange apparitions (Spellbound<\/em>), familial secrets (The Family Man<\/em>), surreal animation (The Witches of the Sands – Animation and Theme Song<\/em>) and a mirror that shows both desire and fear (Mirror,Mirror: Transvile<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sunday 14th brings The Pocket Film of Superstitions <\/em>(2023) as folklore, the occult and the supernatural are all packaged up in a 90-minute look at the history of superstition. There will also be a world premiere of marijuana, vampires, gangsters, and rock music with the UK\u00b4s Blood Demons<\/em> (2024).<\/p>\n\n\n BloodDemons <\/p>\n\n\n\n No horror festival would be complete without the ridiculous and Sunday promises that in spades with a werewolf Santa in Werewolf Santa<\/em> (2023) and a bathtub shark attack in\u2026 you guessed it, Bathtub Shark Attack<\/em> (2023). The Christmas spirit will still be (barely) alive when a lycan dons the red-and-white trim suit, and everyone will be urged to stay out of the bathwater when a thousand-year-old hungry shark comes up through the pipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sunday will also show exclusively UK short films. Whether it is in the woods (If You Go Down to the Woods<\/em>), your own home (Knock Knock <\/em>and Pareidola<\/em>), or the bathroom (The Sink Spectre<\/em>) nowhere is safe. If you stop moving, you\u00b4ll die, in Stop Dead <\/em>and if you stop dancing, you\u00b4ll also die, in Rhyme or Die<\/em>. And the chills don\u00b4t stop either with creepy men (Yellow<\/em>), creepy mothers (Mama\u00b4s Boy<\/em>), and a creepy pregnancy (Ariane\u00b4s Baby<\/em>). There will also be 45 minutes of disco-dancing zombies, exploding body parts and underground goths in Lactasia<\/em> (2023).<\/p>\n\n\n The Last Boy on Earth<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following long weekend on Friday 19 sees the festival pick up again with The Last Boy on Earth <\/em>(2023), a New Zealand film set in the future when humanity thinks they\u00b4ve found their long-lost hope, only to discover they couldn\u00b4t be further from the truth. In a small town in Pennsylvania a curse appears to be targeting adulterers in Cheat <\/em>(2023), while a secluded weekend getaway becomes the scene of a time-bending whodunnit in 8 Found Dead<\/em> (2022). A family tradition of murder represented by the horror mainstay of a killer\u00b4s mask will be honoured in Spain\u00b4s Slasher <\/em>(2023), and another mask, this time worn by a killer dubbed \u00b4The Scalper\u00b4, will be donned when psychic Clementine Carter battles a psychopath from her past in Scalper Night Caller II <\/em>(2023) featuring horror stalwart actor Jake Busey (Starship Troopers, The Frighteners<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n Scalper Night Caller<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is also another world premiere with Horror-Scopes Volume 2 <\/em>(2024), a 12-part anthology based on the Chinese zodiac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stop-motion animation opens the day for the short film selection with Humbug Manor <\/em>the first of many offerings from Spain. Mum<\/em> will show the lengths a parent would go to for their child, a creeper breaks into other hotel guest rooms in Somnia<\/em>, a suspicious hunter offers a group of stranded women a lift in Once You Pop<\/em>, and a long lost love finds an unfamiliar face on the Valencian coast in The Lovers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Horror-on-Sea goes meta when three short films are presented in The Weird World of Molly Brown <\/em>including one that was filmed at last year\u00b4s festival, and Slaypril Fools 88<\/em> offers another edition of a slasher series within a slasher series.<\/p>\n\n\n Slaypril Fools 88<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two world premieres from British filmmakers take viewers into the evening. A dark presence haunts a village pub in I Curse This Land<\/em> (2024), while a 1960s serial killer, gangsters and femme fatales combine in the horror-noir Burnt Flowers<\/em> (2024). Then flesh is the last item on the menu when Cannibal Mukbang<\/em> (2023) mixes comedy and horror in an American dish that serves romance and gore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final day of the festival, and final day begins with What Lurks Beneath<\/em> (2023), a Canadian submarine film where Americans and Russians will find they have a much more deadly enemy in the water than themselves, and a psychic detective returns to the force to battle a serial killer with a pumpkin-head in Dan Hawk Psychic Detective<\/em> (2023). The world premiere of the finale to the ten-part sci-fi saga Slasher House 3: Rebooted<\/em> (2024) will see Red make a last stand against a Government army, and another sci-fi premiere will follow with the otherworldly horror in Alien Legacy: Terror on Luxor Ridge <\/em>(2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Southend the area literally comes to the screen with Punch <\/em>(2023), an end-of-the-pier gothic slasher that sees Mr Punch stalking the seafront and resident Frankie. And what better way to finish a horror festival than a horde of hillbillies from hell in Hillbilly Holocaust<\/em> (2023).<\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/staging.centmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/HellNurse.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n