The ninth annual Popcorn Frights Film Festival returns to Florida August 10-20, offering a hybrid experience. This year’s lineup includes 25 films that delve into the darkest corners of international genre cinema, including seven world premieres, with more still to be announced. Deliver Us is the festival’s opening night world premiere, delivering a tale of ancient prophecy, a nun, and the antichrist. And to add an extra dash of pizzazz, this screening will take place in a theater that was once a Methodist church in the 1940s.
As always, the festival will shine a special spotlight on made-in-Florida fare, including the world premiere of “glam horror queer celebration” Big Easy Queens featuring musical numbers, zombies, drag queens, and “campy neo-giallo” vibes. A four-piece band and a live show featuring the stars of Big Easy Queens will accompany the premiere. The made-in-Miami holiday slasher Santastein will also make its debut. Retro fare is also on the menu, with a special screening of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Miami Beach gore-fest, Blood Feast. They’re calling this one an “immersive” presentation, and we are excited and also a little afraid of what that might entail.
3-D is king at this year’s fest with an ultimate 3-D extravaganza dubbed the “1983-D Revival Showcase.” The program includes Friday The 13th Part III, Parasite 3-D, Silent Madness 3-D, and Jaws 3-D. Now that’s a lot of eye-popping gore coming at you. Other highlights from the first wave announcement include The Puppetman, The Dive, Trim Season, and Perpetrator. Check out some of the virtual program highlights in the press release below.
Popcorn Frights’ virtual program is set to unleash an “Australian Invasion” featuring the world premieres of the found-footage nightmare PUZZLE BOX and the stylishly gloomy tour-de-force PSYCHOSIS, as well as Alice Maio Mackay’s utterly defiant genre-bender T BLOCKERS. The festival’s virtual program also includes world premieres of the mind-bending thriller QUANTUM SUICIDE and the hair-raising tale SORRY, CHARLIE, about a malevolent stranger who lures unsuspecting women with a haunting recording of a crying baby.
Other highlights playing as part of the festival’s virtual experience include the audacious puppet horror ABRUPTIO, the fiercely haunting THE BANALITY, the twisted time loop horror BRIGHTWOOD, the Lovecraftian horror musical ELDRITCH, USA, the engrossingly disturbing GHOSTS OF THE VOID, the chillingly dystopian NO MORE TIME, the whimsical horror comedy THE LAST MOVIE EVER MADE, and the unapologetically queer folk horror SAINT DROGO.
A second wave of Popcorn Frights 2023 titles with more than two dozen additional feature film premieres for in-theater and virtual programming will be announced in the coming weeks.
Access to the in-theater experience will be available through individual tickets or an all-access badge, which will provide an all-inclusive experience for films and special events hosted at the Savor Cinema Fort Lauderdale and O Cinema South Beach (“The Horror Collective Screening Room”), Popcorn Frights official host venues this year. Separate virtual passes are also available and will provide access to every film streaming in the festival’s virtual program. To order an In-Theater All-Access Badge, click here. To order a Virtual All-Access Pass, click here.
