London's FrightFest returns to the Odeon LUXE Leicester Square and the Odeon Luxe West End over the August bank holiday with the biggest programme in its history: eighty-two features across five screens, twenty-four world premieres, sixteen countries represented. Somewhere in the middle of it, a hippopotamus.
The festival opens with Nervous, Abner Pastoll's South Korea-set descent into madness, and closes with Species, a body horror from French writer-director Marion Le Corroller. Between the bookends: Colony, the new one from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho; Christopher Smith world-premiering his eight-legged satire Spider Island; and Salmokji: Whispering Water, currently the highest-grossing Korean horror film ever made, getting its moment in front of a British crowd.
Two entries have this desk's particular attention. One is Ithaqua, a period survival horror carrying the Hammer name back onto a festival marquee, directed by Casey Walker, who per the festival's own announcement becomes the first director with two films in the same edition: the other is Home Bodies, a Christmas movie pitched as unlike any you have seen, a claim we intend to stress-test. The other is Hungry, James Nunn's survival thriller about bayou tourists stalked by a ravenous, territorial hippopotamus, which is the year's most honest logline and we will not be taking questions about why it is on our list.
Eighty-two films in five days works out to a film every ninety waking minutes, a pace this newsroom regards as a health hazard and a personal challenge. Our desk will be in the dark, arguing about endings. Full report after the bank holiday.