Be prepared for the weird, the wild and the wonderful as FrightFest 2025 announces its line-up.
Just as the temperature rises, FrightFest, the UK's No.1 horror and fantasy film festival, returns to The Odeon LUXE Leicester Square for its annual five-day extravaganza, taking over seven screens, including the two at the ODEON Luxe West End from 21st - 25th August.
FrightFest will showcase sixty-nine features from across the world, embracing twenty-five main screen premieres and forty-four Discovery Screen titles, including the popular ‘First Blood’ strand, the latest genre documentaries, and a 4K restoration retrospective of one of the most game-changing British shockers ever. Plus, there’s the regular short-film strand, now extended to four showcases - to be announced later. This year there are nineteen world premieres, with fourteen countries represented, spanning four continents!
The festival opens with the UK premiere of THE HOME, from director James DeMonaco, creator of The Purge franchise. This is an instant horror classic, an exhilarating ride into pure suspense-filled terror. The closing night film is the UK premiere of Kurtis David Harder's INFLUENCERS, a sequel to the 2022 Shudder hit Influencer. This thriller finds Canadian actress Cassandra Naud reprising her role as CW, a shadowy Tom Ripley-like figure who targets influencers. Super unsettling, and so deliciously twisted it is destined to be one of the most talked-about genre films of the year.
The Toxic Avenger, also on the line-up, is the much-awaited reboot of the 1984 Troma classic of the same name. Much like its campy source material, it’ll be heavy on the splatter, with Dinklage as the unsanitary superhero of the title
Other hype-worthy titles from the line-up include Gerard Johnson’s Odyssey Flush, a French film with some abominable ‘plunging’ and ‘plumbing’ involved, and Borderline, a dark comedy with Ready or Not star Samara Weaving as a pop star and Smile 2’s Ray Nicholson playing her stalker fan.
From the UK is BAMBI: THE RECKONING, a powerful and gory retelling of the famous 1923 novel and beloved 1942 Walt Disney classic, and cerebral thriller BLOCKHEAD, the first narrative feature from Matt Harlock, the director behind the award-winning documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story. In terms of retrospectives, FrightFest 2025 will feature a 4K restoration screening of Neil Marshall’s claustrophobic cave horror The Descent with some of the cast in attendance.
Co-director Alan Jones comments: “The 2025 event will be epic in every sense, celebrating the inventive, transgressive and diverse. So, join us for an event that has consistently remained in the Top Ten of The World’s Best Fantasy Festivals list”.
Festival passes on sale now. Day passes and single tickets on sale Saturday 19th July at noon.