Horror motion pictures pair greatest with a powerful drink and a brass band. That’s why the Overlook Movie Pageant is returning to New Orleans, Louisiana this spring for its hair-raising tenth anniversary version. The milestone celebration guarantees 4 days of cinematic nightmares, style neighborhood constructing, and supernatural mischief — all loved between po’boys and ghostly strolling excursions in America’s most haunted metropolis.
Working April 9 to 12 out of Prytania Theatres, this 12 months’s lineup could also be gentle on the world premieres. However what it lacks in first appears to be like it greater than makes up for with savvy curation and New Orleans’ plain environment. The 2026 schedule delivers one other eclectic slate together with a few of the buzziest new horror titles, from Curry Barker’s opening-night nightmare “Obsession” to Damian McCarthy’s “Hokum” at closing. The Neon-backed chiller “Leviticus” additionally serves because the centerpiece movie.
Designed for audiences preferring their cinema further unusual, there’s lots extra cult-minded discoveries, too. Catch the world premiere Larry Fessenden’s new “Trauma, or Monsters All” in addition to the three earlier creature-filled chapters from his scrappy, deeply private monster-verse. In the same vein, persevering with its custom of honoring artists who formed the style, Overlook will current its Grasp of Horror award to the legendary make-up artist Rick Baker. The tribute features a forty fifth anniversary screening of “An American Werewolf in London,” which earned Baker his first ever Oscar.
That impeccable style extends to the shorts part, which can be guided as soon as once more by critic and frequent IndieWire contributor Katie Rife. Her style for depraved, wildly creative terror continues to make the more and more beloved competition’s bite-sized choices certainly one of its most dependable highlights. For 2026, Overlook’s shorts are grouped into three packages with fittingly spooky titles: Feral, Freaky, and Static.
After all, no correct New Orleans celebration could be full with no little dancing on the street. After debuting final 12 months for Shudder’s tenth anniversary, Overlook’s horror-themed Second Line returns for spherical two within the French Quarter. In a metropolis the place unfamiliar spirits are routinely handled like bar regulars, Overlook’s tenth birthday invitations all types of bizarro film lovers to boost somewhat hell.
Learn on for the entire first wave announcement. Passes on sale now at overlookfilmfest.com.
Opening Night time Movie
Obsession
Director: Curry Barker
Solid: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter United States, 2025
Hopelessly paralyzed by his unrequited crush on certainly one of his closest mates, a lovelorn 20-something makes a want on a mysterious novelty toy, solely to seek out out that his desires are far worse than any nightmare he may think about on this bone-chilling relationship horror.
Centerpiece Movie
Leviticus
Director: Adrian Chiarella
Solid: Joe Chicken, Stacy Clausen, Mia Wasikowska, Jeremy Blewitt, Ewen Leslie, Davida McKenzie
Australia, 2026
Two teenage boys should escape a violent entity that takes the type of the particular person they want most — one another.
Closing Night time Movie
Hokum
Director: Damian McCarthy
Solid: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, Will O’Connell, Michael Patric, Siox C, Brendan Conroy, Austin Amelio, Ezra Carlisle
United States, Eire, 2026
When novelist Ohm Bauman (Scott) retreats to a distant inn to scatter his dad and mom’ ashes, he’s consumed by tales of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. Disturbing visions and a stunning disappearance forces him to confront darkish corners of his previous.
Function Movie Displays
Worldwide Titles Offered by MUBI
Boorman and the Satan
Director: David Kittredge
That includes: John Boorman, Louise Fletcher, Karyn Kusama, Mike Flanagan, Joe Dante
United States, 2025
Scorching off the success of his style defining movie, Deliverance, John Boorman takes on his largest problem but – a sequel to one of the vital profitable horror motion pictures in historical past, The Exorcist. What may go unsuitable? This insightful documentary delves deep into the making of one of many largest bombs in horror historical past.
Chili Finger
Administrators: Edd Benda, Stephen Helstad
Solid: Judy Greer, Sean Astin, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Madeline Sensible, Paul Stanko, Sarah Herrman, Sara Sevigny, Dann Florek
United States, 2025
When a down on their luck couple discover a grotesque shock at their favourite quick meals chain, they hatch a easy blackmail plot that rapidly spins their lives uncontrolled on this bloody, Coen Brothers-esque thriller that includes an all-star solid.
Drag
Administrators: Raviv Ullman, Greg Yagolnitzer
Solid: Lizzy Caplan, Lucy DeVito, John Stamos, Christine Ko
United States, 2025
Two sisters. One empty home. A easy housebreaking plan. If solely certainly one of them didn’t throw their again out… Raviv Ullman and Greg Yagolnitzer’s hilarious and twisty horror comedy is a ticking clock crawl to survival because the sibling duo should discover a manner out or face the risks of being caught when the proprietor returns house.
Exit 8
Director: Genki Kawamura
Solid: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, Kotone Hanase, Nana Komatsu Japan, 2026
Primarily based on the worldwide hit online game, a person trapped in an limitless sterile subway passageway units out to seek out Exit 8. The principles of his quest are easy: don’t overlook something out of the
bizarre. In case you uncover an anomaly, flip again instantly. In case you don’t, keep on. Then depart from Exit 8. However even a single oversight will ship him again to the start. Will he ever attain his aim and escape this infinite hall?
Faces of Demise
Director: Daniel Goldhaber
Solid: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Charli XCX
United States, 2026
A moderator at a social media platform will get thrown face-first right into a macabre thriller when she uncovers a collection of visceral snuff movies bearing resemblance to a legendary 1978 cult movie. Starring Barbie Ferreira, this New Orleans shot slasher is an exhilarating twist on the trendy remake.
Goody Goody
WORLD PREMIERE
Director: Raymond Creamer
Solid: Colleen Foy, Samantha Robinson, Zoe Renee, Colby Hollman
United States, 2026
Lulled right into a obligatory sense of consolation throughout an extended house beginning course of, anticipating dad and mom and their midwife start to understand that one thing could also be horribly unsuitable. As labor problems ensue, a blizzard rages outdoors trapping the household of their house – sitting geese for no matter sinister presence may be in there with them.
The Holy Boy
Director: Paolo Strippoli
Solid: Michele Riondino, Giulio Feltri
Italy, 2026
Deep within the Italian mountains lives a village of a few of the happiest individuals on earth. Their serenity is about to be damaged by the arrival of the brand new PE trainer who’s haunted by his previous and decided to uncover the key of how the entire townspeople are healed weekly by the contact of a 15-year-old boy with particular powers.
By no means After Darkish
Director: Dave Boyle
Solid: Moeka Hoshi, Kento Kaku, Kurumi Inagaki, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Bokuzo Masana, Tae Kimura
Japan, 2025
A medium for rent, assisted by the spirit of her deceased sister, takes on the case of a grotesque apparition that haunts an remoted nation house. As she peels again the layers of the spine-tingling investigation, she realizes that the best threats don’t lie on this planet of the useless, however fairly in with the dwelling individuals round her.
New Group
Administrators: Yûta Shimotsu
Solid: Yuzu Aoki, Pierre Taki
Japan, 2026
From the director of the OFF 2025 winner for Scariest Function, Finest Needs to All, comes a terrifying new imaginative and prescient of youth, conformity, and authoritarianism as the scholars inside a contemporary highschool are violently compelled to turn out to be a part of more and more disturbing, bodily demanding and surreal duties with the intention to assimilate.
Parasomnia
Administrators: James Ross II
Solid: Jasmine Mathews, RJ Brown, Sally Stewart, Stephen Barrington, Danny Brown, Simon Longnight
United States, 2025
When certainly one of her closest mates goes lacking, Riley, a younger girl haunted by a lifelong battle with debilitating night time terrors, should come to phrases with the truth that the demonic entity that’s been stalking her desires since childhood might have adopted her house into the actual world.
Saccharine
Director: Natalie Erika James
Solid: Midori Francis, Danielle Macdonald, Madeleine Madden
Australia, 2026
Searching for a fast weight reduction repair, a medical pupil accepts a mysterious drug, setting her off on a path of undesirable transformation on this goopy, sickening, violent body-horror from the director of Relic.
Trauma, or Monsters All
WORLD PREMIERE
Director: Larry Fessenden
Solid: Alex Breaux, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Barbara Crampton, Aitana Doyle, Larry Fessenden, Rigo Garay, Steve Heller, Laetitia Hollard, Alex Damage, Cody Kostro, James Le Gros
United States, 2026
An aspiring writer will get greater than she bargained for when she writes an article for the native paper about her small city’s darkish historical past, prompting undesirable hypothesis on what monsters might lie inside. Overlook mainstay Larry Fessenden returns with the thrilling conclusion to his quadrilogy, a considerate and fiercely unbiased monster mash that may be loved by itself or marathoned along with his three origin tales – Behavior, Wicked and Blackout.
Ugly Cry
Director: Emily Robinson
Solid: Emily Robinson, Ryan Simpkins, Aaron Domínguez, Robin Tunneyl, Andrew Leeds, Heather Morris, Chalia La Tour, Ray Abruzzo, Sophie Von Haselberg, Josh Ruben, and Melinda McGraw
United States, 2026
An actor’s determined willpower to interrupt in Hollywood leads her down a daunting spiral of obsession, delusion and augmentation on this darkly comedic, Repulsion-esque thriller from first time writer-director and star Emily Robinson.
Retrospective Movie Displays
An American Werewolf in London
forty fifth Anniversary Screening
2026 Grasp of Horror Award Recipient Rick Baker in Particular person
Director: John Landis
Solid: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine
United States, 1981
Beware the moon! Witness probably the most monstrous of monster transformations, one which cemented Rick Baker’s legacy and earned him his first Academy Award, unfurl on the large display earlier than your very eyes. Chosen by our 2026 Grasp of Horror recipient Rick Baker, the screening will precede a dialog with the legend himself.
Blackout
Administrators: Larry Fessenden
Solid: Alex Damage, Addison Timlin, Motell Gyn Foster, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, John Speredakos, Michael Buscemi, Joe Swanberg, Barbara Crampton, James Le Gros, Marshall Bell
United States, 2023
Not your typical werewolf story, Blackout follows a painter, haunted by guilt, who turns into satisfied that he’s remodeling at night time and wreaking havoc in his small city within the third of Larry Fessenden’s four-part monsterverse collection.
Wicked
Director: Larry Fessenden
Solid: David Name, Joshua Leonard, Alex Breaux, Ana Kayne, Maria Dizzia, Chloë Levine United States, 2019
The second in Larry Fessenden’s genre-bending 4 film monsterverse is a millennial tackle the Frankenstein delusion through which a PTSD-riddled subject surgeon deep within the coronary heart of Brooklyn decides to reconstruct an unsuspecting man out of spare physique elements.
Behavior
Director: Larry Fessenden
Solid: Larry Fessenden, Meredith Snaider, Aaron Beall
United States, 1995
Indie icon Larry Fessenden’s first function, about an alcoholic New Yorker who falls for a mysterious girl with vampiric qualities, is as groundbreaking now because it was when it debuted over 20 years in the past, inspiring generations of younger horror filmmakers to this present day.
A Web page of Insanity
one centesimal Anniversary Screening with Stay Rating Composed by Jeff Pagano
Director: Teinosuke Kinugasa
Solid: Masuo Inoue, Ayako Iijima, Yoshie Nakagawa
Japan, 1926
A totally authentic avant-garde masterpiece as soon as thought misplaced to time for 45 years, Japan’s first ever horror movie merely should be seen. A rarity in sight and sound, this murals can be offered with an authentic composition from Nola’s personal Jeff Pagano (Marigny Opera Home) and carried out by a six piece orchestra handpicked by the maestro.
Stay Occasions and Particular Displays
SHUDDER SECOND LINE PARADE
Offered by SHUDDER
The quintessential New Orleans artwork type returns with our signature horror twist courtesy of the scariest streamer round. Greater and bolder, this 12 months’s second line will kick off the complete competition on Opening Night time. Make your strategy to our competition headquarters earlier than the screenings start, strutting via the French Quarter in model behind a demonic brass band, creepy characters each acquainted and unknown, and also you. We roll at 5pm. Laissez les bons temps rouler!
Immersive Displays
Offered by American Immersion Theater
The competition’s distinctive interactive stay theatrical horror experiences for small audiences return with contemporary choices for the courageous and mysterious.
ETERNAL
Creator: Darkfield
You may have been chosen and we thanks on your sacrifice. In return we give you the chance for everlasting life, however there are situations. ETERNAL is a 25 minute immersive audio
expertise for one particular person, alone of their mattress. It explores the temptation of everlasting life and wonders what worth you’d pay to realize it. ETERNAL was commissioned by the 2020 Bram Stoker Pageant, Dublin.
HAG
Offered by Charming Stranger
Creator: The Queen’s Fools
The Bizarre Sisters have gotten even weirder. You may have responded to a Craigslist advert from a disgruntled Landlord needing assist clearing out some squatters from his not too long ago bought property. Pack up their issues & do what you’ve gotta do to get ‘em out. Easy. Solely, some squatters are higher left alone. HAG is a 35-minute spooky & foolish immersive expertise for 4 viewers members, led via the chaos and appeal of Shakespeare’s Bizarre Sisters.
THE MOTHER OF NIGHTMARES
Creators: EW3 Productions and AOTW
Step into the dream world and are available nose to nose with the Mom of Nightmares, the mysteriously mischievous determine who creates and controls your entire worst desires, as she guides you thru this surreal and darkly comedic 1-on-1 expertise from returning Overlook creators E3W Productions (IN ANOTHER ROOM). Initially carried out as a part of ‘The Form of the Night time’, a full-length immersive expertise exploring the world of desires and nightmares created by Overlook veteran group All Of Them Witches (AOTW).
Quick Movie Displays
Quick movies can be offered in three themed packages: Feral, Freaky and Static.
Blister, dir. Olivia Simon, United States, 2025, WORLD PREMIERE
Trapped alone in a haunted room, a magical researcher’s experiment goes horrifically unsuitable.
Breeder, dir, Sapphire Sandalo, United States, 2025, WORLD PREMIERE
A girl on the fence about having children is hunted in her house by a demonic horse-man.
Carousel, dir. Christopher Kosakowski, United States, 2025
A circus clown celebrating his birthday alone receives a mysterious present field harboring an vintage zoetrope that spins his world into mayhem.
The Creature of Darkness, dir. Lisa Marie Malloy, Roy Whitaker, United States, 2026
Darkness settles over Little Egypt. Brielle, Karri, and Nunu wander among the many limestone outcrops and sandstone spires. In a cave that sheltered freedom seekers alongside the Underground Railroad, their uncle shares a narrative of a creature that stirs at night time.
Darkroom, dir. Matthew Black, United States, 2025
In his house darkroom, against the law scene photographer develops photos of a grotesque homicide, and every new print comes out extra unsettling than the final.
The Dysphoria, dir. Kylie Aoibheann, Australia, 2025
A trans girl performs a Satanic ritual to get a vagina, however unwittingly invitations a demonic presence into her house which calls for a horrible sacrifice.
F**okay Face, dir. Dean Puckett, United Kingdom, 2025
A single mom and her youngster are put via a nightmarish ordeal when a politician knocks on their door.
Ghoststory, dir. Alex Jacobs, United States, 2026 A cursed artifact wrapped in static.
Haint, dir. Jahmil Eady, United States, 2025
When gentrifiers start to mysteriously die, a Gullah Geechee handywoman who not too long ago misplaced her house, should resolve whether or not to assist them or depart the newcomers to their destiny.
Has Anybody Else Misplaced Their Physique?, dir. Randall Snare, United States, 2026, WORLD PREMIERE
The feedback on a reluctant influencer’s first viral dance video overflow with individuals claiming to lose their our bodies after watching it.
He, dir. Hira Vin, Canada, 2025
A facility monetizes the flexibility of a shapeshifting entity to turn out to be the lover of their patrons’ desires. Nancy, a lady determined for love and affection, jumps into the rabbit gap and meets her destiny when she decides to not comply with facility guidelines.
Hickeys, dir. Ella Rhodes, United States, 2025
Whereas acting at her first live performance on the most well liked day of 1983, a queer runaway is horrified to find that her bandmates are rapacious vampires preying on her vulnerability.
Do-it-yourself Gatorade, dir. Carter Amelia Davis, United States, 2025
A girl embarks on a street journey to ship her creamy home made sports activities drink to a mysterious on-line purchaser.
Scorching Water, dir. Miles Gunter, Cassie Kramer, United States, 2025, WORLD PREMIERE
A corrupt kidnapped choose has till a pot of water boils to confess to wrongdoing — or his head goes into the scalding water.
Home Cat, dir. Kyle Spleiss, United States, 2026
Dwelling out of her automobile and hustling gig to gig, a lady takes a last-ditch job house-sitting a cat, solely to find she isn’t there to look after the cat; she is the cat.
It’s Not Me, dir. Cameron Veitch, Robert J Kemp, Canada, 2025
After discovering a lady that appears to be her actual double, Hannah decides to take over her life. However a presence appears to threaten Hannah’s ambitions.
Final Name, dir. Winnie Cheung, United States, 2025
A bike insurgent spirals deeper into her erotic hallucinations with the intention to escape the grip of a sultry serpent girl.
Man Consuming Pussy, dir. Lee Lawson, Canada, 2026
A dying man seeks consolation in a mysterious intercourse employee whose monstrous anatomy provides not simply pleasure—however the final launch.
Males (Lok), dir. Mahmuda Sultana Rima, Bangladesh, 2025
In a really rural village of Bangladesh, males all of a sudden begin to disappear. The villagers begin blaming the recluse ‘witch’ of the village who is understood to apply black magic. However why is she making these males disappear?
Mom Mary, dir. Playdoh Kolo, United States, 2025
A shadow puppet music video for the music by Sally Child’s Silver {Dollars}, mixing Creole jazz, non secular people imagery, and hand-cut animation.
Nail-Biter, dir. Joseph Burch, United States, 2025, WORLD PREMIERE
On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, anxious nail-biter Amy Heller confronts her mom about their so-called household curse, simply because the monster arrives to say her as its subsequent sufferer.
Scissors, dir. Hannah Alline, United States, 2025
A slasher with a grudge meets his match when a bunch of queer mates on a weekend getaway turns his killing spree right into a bloody night time he by no means noticed coming.
Spanked by a Ghost, dir. Katelyn Douglass, United States, 2025
Alone in her house, a lady is spanked by an unseen entity, awakening a power she can not management.
Steak Dinner, dir. Nathan Mark Ginter, United States, 2025
Casey’s tried shock dinner date will get derailed when Taylor, her girlfriend, reveals she has introduced house an odd, wounded creature she intends to nurse again to well being.
Superconscious, dir. Christianne Hedtke, United States, 2025
Amidst a simmering Chilly Warfare and the daybreak of the Age of Aquarius, Cybil G. journeys to a far-flung human potential middle to affix a scientific research on so-called “psi power.”
Vlog Cam, dir. Danilo Rafael Parra, United States, 2025
New to the town and looking for connection, Might stumbles upon a discarded vlog digital camera within the park.