Ahead of Pride Month starting tomorrow, FANGORIA are excited to exclusively reveal the lineup for Sohome Horror Pride, the fifth annual virtual celebration of all things queer horror from London’s award-winning Soho Horror Film Festival.
Since 2018, Soho Horror Film Festival has maintained a welcoming community that proudly platforms minority or marginalized filmmakers and voices, while also championing the punk-rock spirit of indie horror. While the in-person fest takes place in November, Sohome Horror Pride is a virtual film festival celebrating queer horror from 11 – 14 July.
Here’s what the official press release teases that we’re in for…
A 4 day online gala of gayness that will take a chainsaw to heteronormativity and bring you the very best voices in LGBTQ+ filmmaking. Featuring 11 fierce features, over 20 slay shorts, and 5 very special live events, Sohome Horror Pride will be broadcasting this onslaught of sickening cinema straight to your screens at home.
Sohome Horror Pride will also play host to a special evening celebrating and bidding farewell to the female horror collective and friends of Fango, Ghouls Magazine, with a series of panels, retrospectives on feminine cannibal movies and an exclusive preview screening of Aimee Kuge’s Cannibal Mukbang.
Without further ado, let’s dive into this deliciously pun-filled press release that reveals the full official lineup…
Opening the festival with a symphony of scares is the UK Premiere of Erlingur Thoroddsen’s THE PIPER, a haunting remix of the Pied Piper of Hamlin fable, featuring a stunning score from genre legend Christopher Young, as well as one of the final performances from the incredible Julian Sands. Keeping things in a melodic mood, Sohome Horror Pride will also host a live show celebrating the breadth of horror film musical adaptations with exclusive performances. Then to close the festival, dialling up the distortion and turning down the good taste, Heidi Moore brings to the stage a gaggle of drag queens competing for Serial of the Year in the punk opera sleaze of KILL DOLLY KILL; guaranteed to leave you Troma-tised.
Drag finds its horror centre stage this year with a 50th anniversary honouring of Divine and John Waters’ infamous classic FEMALE TROUBLE from Nightmare on Fierce Street Podcast, and an exclusive live director’s commentary of last year’s viciously vogue FEMME. But that’s not all, SOHOME continue to champion the directors of drag horror cult classic DEATH DROP GORGEOUS by screening a whole new leviathan in SAINT DROGO: a horny, ethereal, queer folk horror that lures you in with its rural beauty and then gnaws your throat out. SOHOME’s celebration of Drag concludes with a special evening with Drag queen genre icon, Peaches Christ, who will present her short films alongside collaborator Michael Varrati for Midnight Mass.
Coming (out) of (r)age horror sets to terrify on many levels in the international debut of Sam Probst and Colby Holt’s conversion therapy chiller GANYMEDE; medieval revenge and sapphic redemption collide in WILD EYED AND WICKED from GB Foxwood; and supernatural slashers in the Chaz Bono and Bonnie Aarons starring direct-to-noughties-DVD throwback THE BELL KEEPER. Also finding their UK Premiere at the festival is the tender yet viscerally vampiric Dutch feature WE ARE ANIMALS; and if you’re not over spider cinema yet in 2024, steel yourself for the strangest body horror you’ll see all year in Ion De Sosa’s Euro satire MAMANTULA.
The forging and security of identity is a prevalent theme across the lineup, but especially so in a special preview of Nicholas Vince’s one man show cinematic adaptation I AM MONSTERS! and the colonialist camp of Gil Baroni’s HOUSE OF IZABEL, a twisted Brazilian 60’s set melodrama where male-presenting individuals escape to a country estate to explore their feminine personas. Trans narratives and general excellence has a special presentation in T-Shockers, a showcase of the best in trans horror at the moment including the world premiere of Robyn Adam’s THE ESTROGEN GOSPEL. Anal gaping in BLACK HOLE BARRY, tender nostalgia in Thom Hilton’s MATINEE BABY and stars studding in FREE BENCH with Hunter Doohan and GIANNA with Revkah Reyes; just a few of almost 30 short films being exhibited throughout the event.
For more information and tickets that go live tomorrow, head over to Soho Horror Film Festival’s official site!
