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Hitting York’s City Screen Picturehouse from September 27 – 29 is the return of the great Dead Northern Film Festival, the fifth edition of the horror and fantasy celebration taking place in the UK’s spookiest city.
This year’s lineup sees a whole host of terrifying shorts, UK and World Premieres, filmmaker Q+As, expert-led panels and, as always, a ton of social events where you can hang out and have fun with likeminded horror fans. Plus, a classic feature screening of the iconic and terrifying found footage classic, The Blair Witch Project.
Tickets are now on sale via Dead Northern’s official website, and you can follow Dead Northern Film Festival to keep up with updates on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Now let’s dive into this stacked lineup courtesy of Dead Northern’s official press release:
Friday 27 September
Student Shorts
Tasty tongue • Wick • Strings • Did you get that? • Next please • Dead body • The bloke in the boot • The Journey Home
Feature – UK Premiere – ALL THIS TIME + Q&A
Trapped with a mysterious vampire in an endless time loop, Grace must unlock the secrets of the house, the previous night’s party, and her own past, to find any hope of escaping and returning to her normal life and young child.
Director: Rob Worsley
Key Cast: Dan De BourgKey, Emma Pallant, Emily Rose Holt
Feature – World Premiere – FEAR CABIN
Six friends rent a cabin in the middle of the woods on the last weekend of summer and set out to have an amazing time full of partying and drinking. Little do they know that they will be sharing this cabin with an unexpected guest, will they make it out alive?
Director: Brian Krainson
Key Cast: Jeremy London, Brody Wellmaker, Violet SinClair, Brian Krainson, Jennifer Barlow, Mackenzie Messick, Wyatt London, Lily Misticawi, Jeff Holcomb, Parker Denning, Bianca Medeiros Krainson
Mysterious shorts
Les Bêtes • VHX • Merkurio • Fisitor • Lord of the free range • Demons in the closet
DEAD TALK Found footage horror
With The Independent Horror Society
Feature – UK Premiere – STICKMAN’S HOLLOW + Recorded Q&A
A young couple on a fishing trip with their son decide to explore an area of remote wilderness known as the Stickman’s Hollow. Told through the surviving pieces of footage from their fateful trip, the film documents the family’s vacation as they are mercilessly hunted in the forest by an unknown force, and the dark past of the hollow is brought to light.
Director: Jack Cox
Key Cast: Thomas Cadrot, Michael Adamthwaite, Jason Simpson, Lucy McNulty, Aidan Drummond
Classic Feature – The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.
Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
Key Cast: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams, Bob Griffin, Jim King, Sandra Sánchez, Ed Swanson, Patricia DeCou, Mark Mason, Susie Gooch
Saturday 28 September
Demonic shorts
Collection only • Embrace • Daughters of Evil • Dance with the Devil • Easter Eggs • Match • The Rising of the Sap • Five turns • Puzzle box: The Glitch
Feature – Regional Premier Scopophobia + Q&A
Four girls return home to a ghost town but find themselves being followed. By someone who knows what they did? Or just their guilty conscience? There’s more to each girl than meets the eye.
Director: Aled Owen
Key Cast: Emma Stacey, Steffan Cennydd, Ioan Hefin, Nathan Sussex, Aled Owen, Rhodri Miles, Christine Kempell, Kevin McCurdy, Lisa Marged, Erwan Sion, Catrin Jones, Ellen Jane-Thomas, Thom Robin, Bethany Williams-Potter, Garry Sowerby, Colin Lewis
Slasher, Thriller & Creature shorts
Safe • Skulk • Body Worn Video • The Curse of the velvet Vampire • Nervous Ellie • Black Hole Barry • The Mannequin • What a catch • Little Brown Bird • Do not open
Feature – UK Premier The Healing
Lyuba needs help, only she doesn’t know about it yet. She’s in a trap, married to a man who treats her like an expensive accessory. Once she agrees to go for the weekend with her friends to a trendy psychological training to gather her strength and try to get her relationship with her husband back on track.
Director: Den Hook (Krychkov)
Key Cast: Alyona Mitroshina, Wolfgang Cerny, Vyacheslav Chepurchenko, Ekaterina Solomatina, Victoria Skitskaya, Maxim Khanzhov, Alexander Shein
DEAD TALK Film making Panel
With The Independent Horror Society
Feature – Regional Premier – Kill Your Lover + Q&A
Axel and Dakota are stuck in a toxic relationship, slowly poisoning each other both mentally and physically. When Dakota tries to break it off, it causes a violent physical reaction in Axel that starts transforming him into a monstrous creature with increased aggression, a touch that melts skin and worst of all, he’s contagious…
Directors: Alix Austin, Keir Siewert
Key Cast: Paige Gilmour, Shane Quigley Murphy, May Kelly, Chloe Wigmore, Joshua Whincup
Sunday 29 September
Feature – Mystery feature
Mini Feature – Strike
“When the lonely and isolated Francine is gifted a case of matches made in her controlling husband’s factory, she discovers that within the flames of each match resides the tortured soul of a deceased factory worker, cursed to appear with every strike.”
Set against the Matchgirl Strikes of 1888, Strike is a gothic story about friendship and the toxicity that can be hidden behind the guise of love. As we still battle for better working conditions and campaign for equality, this timely short film shows us how far we’ve come by standing still.
Director: Mark Patterson
Key Cast: Gracie LeClere, James Viller, Amy Anderson
Feature – The Monster Beneath Us + Q&A
Yorkshire, 1898. A grieving woman and her son move back to the unoccupied house of her ex husband, recently found dead, but they discover that they are not alone inside the house.
Director: Sophie Osbourne
Music mini feature – The Black Quarry
In this film by HorrorWeb Productions, a black metal band travels to an abandoned quarry to film a music video as intense as their sound. Although the lead singer has his own sinister motivations in mind for shooting there, what lurks beneath the quarry proves to be more menacing than his twisted intentions.
Director: Corey Jason Trahan
Key Cast: Sarah Webb Scotty Walker, Jason Rouse, Charles Nestell
Feature – UK Premiere – Kill Victoria
Thirty-something couples PAULA & PETE and JACKY & NIGEL, along with their perpetually single pal NICK (30s) have been best friends for years. Since grade school, the quintette has been inseparable. Until…Nick finally gets engaged to a girl named VICTORIA (28). From that moment, he seems to change. As far as the other four are concerned, driving a wedge through such a tight friendship is unforgivable. One night, the quartet jokingly speculate on how they would kill Victoria in order to save Nick from making “the worst mistake of his life” by marrying her. However, when Nick brings Victoria on the annual weekend cottage trip, the killing joke turns into a real plot when Victoria manages to uncover a dark secret about each of the four. It seems that none of their lives are as squeaky-clean as they’d previously let on. Submerged in this private panic, the four decide to re-explore the discussion of how to KILL VICTORIA. Only now, it’s about saving themselves.And this time, it’s not a game.
Director:Robin Dunne
Key Cast: Laura Vandervoort, Sara Canning, Michael Xavier, Aaron Poole, Gia Sandhu, Robin Dunne
Feature – World Premier – Lake Jesup
The year is 2003 and 11 people have gone missing since a killer gator named Bonecrusher was released under suspicious circumstances from local attraction Gator Galaxy. Rumored to be intentionally released into LAKE JESUP for nefarious reasons – people are now dying and the owner of Gator Galaxy is not only NOT taking any responsibility for it – he is cashing in on the mania of it all.
Former Gator Galaxy wrangler and ex con Bubba Coggins, newly out of prison, is presented with the opportunity to have his record expunged if he can find, catch and kill Bonecrusher. Desperate to clean up his past and begin a new life with his daughter and grandson, Bubba’s moral compass becomes immediately challenged when he finds himself willing to do ANYTHING, even kill, to accomplish his task of extinguishing Bonecrusher’s reign of terror.
Director: Michael Houston King
Key Cast: Danny Nucci, Derek Russo, Sarah Voigt, Kent Shocknek, Michael Houston King, Nick Schroeder, Katie Gibbons, Jeff Benninghofen, Savannah Grace Elmer, Essex O’Brien, Grant Jay, Simon Lee, Alexia Aldebol, Scot Scurlock, Mario Xavier, Finley Raser, Kelley Mauro
