The Last Drive-In‘s Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mail Girl are kicking off the 10th annual Panic Fest with a special 20th anniversary screening of Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep on Thursday, April 28 at 7pm CST at Screenland Armour Theatre.
Panic Fest co-founder Tim KC Canton says, “We couldn’t be more thrilled to bring Panic Fest back to the masses for our 10th festival! Can’t wait to see everyone back at the theater and kick things off with Joe Bob while celebrating so many great films we get to share with genre fans.”
Sleepwalkers director Mick Garris joins us live to celebrate the film’s 30th anniversary on Saturday, April 30, followed by a live podcast taping of Nightmare on Film Street, with Garris as the special guest.
Rounding out the weekend is the legendary Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of Troma Entertainment film studio, who will be in-person to introduce his film Shakespeare ShitstormShakespeare’s Shitstorm on Sunday, May 1.
This year’s lineup includes over 30 feature films and 50+ short films from around the world in addition to signature podcasts, special events, and virtual meet-ups via the Gather platform.
Panic Fest continues their partnerships with genre leaders IFC Films, Shudder, Yellow Veil Pictures, XYZ Films, Dark Star Pictures, Dark Sky Films, Blumhouse, Momentum PIctures, Screambox and Vinegar Syndrome. Panic Fest is presented by 1220 Spirits, Logboat Brewing Company, 4 Hands Brewing Company and KC Film.
“We’re excited to bring back our in-person festival in its full glory. Being in the same room together and celebrating these films and finding new members of our film family is truly priceless. I look forward to having our community back together because that’s what Panic Fest is all about,” says Panic Fest co-founder Adam Roberts.
More programming and special guests to be announced! Get your tickets here. *Please note the Joe Bob Briggs event is separately ticketed from the festival.
FEATURE FILM PROGRAMMING
Allegoria
D: Spider One
Five stories about art and monsters.
Bitch Ass
D: Bill Posley
A gang initiation goes wrong when a group of four recruits break into a house of horror, as they’re all forced to play deadly games for their lives. Win and you live – lose and you die.
Dashcam
D: Rob Savage
Two friends go on a horror-fueled road trip and livestream the most terrifying night of their lives.
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes
D: Kevin Kopacka
A couple spend eternity in a castle until their reality starts to shift, as the unknown moves into their lives.
DAWNING
D: Young Min Kim
A trauma therapist, Haejin Park, is forced to face her family’s darkest past after she returns to her childhood countryside farm to console her heartbroken younger sister. A Korean-English spoken drama/psychological thriller that explores mental health, family trauma, abuse and familial responsibilities.
Hatching
D: Hanna Bergholm
A young gymnast who tries desperately to please her demanding mother discovers a strange egg. She hides it and keeps it warm, but when it hatches, what emerges shocks them all.
Hypochondriac
D: Addison Heimann
A young potter’s life devolves into chaos as he loses function of his body while being haunted by the physical manifestation of his childhood trauma.
Lux Aeterna
D: Gaspar Noé
Two actresses, Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg, are on a film set telling stories about witches – but that’s not all.
Malibu Horror Story
D: Scott Slone
A team of paranormal investigators search a sacred Native American cave for clues in the unsolved disappearance of four local teens.
Masking Threshold
D: Johannes Grenzfurthner
Conducting a series of experiments in his makeshift home lab, a skeptic IT worker tries to cure his harrowing hearing impairment. But where will his research lead him?
Nitram
D: Justin Kurzel
A dramatization of events leading up to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in an attempt to understand why and how the atrocity occurred.
Pennywise: The Story of IT
D: John Campopiano and Chris Griffiths
A documentary surrounding It (1990), based upon the Stephen King novel of the same name, which featured a notorious villain known mostly as Pennywise.
Presence
D: Christian M Schultz
Two young business partners, Jennifer and Samantha, are invited to a weeklong yachting voyage with David, a potential investor. At night, Jennifer’s dreams begin to bleed into reality as the others realize that she may have unknowingly brought something onto the vessel.
Revealer
D: Luke Boyce
Tensions rise when a stripper and religious protester are trapped together in a peep show booth and must come together to survive the apocalypse in 1980s Chicago.
Rondo and Bob
D: Joe O’Connell
Texas Chain Saw Massacre art director Robert Burns was obsessed with cult actor Rondo Hatton. Bob was a normal-looking guy who was strangely creative. Rondo was a normal guy who looked strange. Both were looking for love.
Shakespeare’s Shitstorm with Lloyd Kaufman
D: Lloyd Kaufman
Regional Premiere, 1h 34min
In a crude parody of William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, Prospero lures a boatload of pharmaceutical executives to Tromaville, New Jersey.
Sleepwalkers with Mick Garris
D: Mick Garris
30th Anniversary, 1h 31min
A mother-and-son team of strange supernatural creatures move to a small town to seek out a young virgin to feed on.
She Will
D: Charlotte Colbert
Story of Veronica Ghent, who after a double mastectomy, goes to a healing retreat in rural Scotland with her young nurse Desi and discovers that the process of such surgery opens up questions about her very existence, leading her to start to question and confront past traumas.
Some Visitors
D: Paul Christopher Hibbard
A woman mourning the loss of a child is home alone in an area that has been afflicted with recent home invasions. She receives a knock on the door from a mysterious man who wants to be let inside.
The Abandon
D: Jason Satterlund
A soldier in the middle of a firefight is hit with a blinding light. He wakes up alone in a strange room with no doors, windows, or exits. Unsure if he is in a hospital, prison, or hell, he tries to radio for help, to no avail. The only person he can reach is a woman who claims to be trapped in a similar room. Together, they work to find a way out before it’s too late.
The Chamber of Terror
D: Michael Pereira
Nash Caruthers is on a deadly collision course with the people that tore his world apart…along with something unexpected. Something far more sinister.
The Creeping
D: Jamie Hooper
Due to a traumatic childhood experience, Anna hasn’t returned home for many years. With her ailing grandmother, Lucy, suffering with worsening symptoms of dementia, Anna moves home to look after her. Soon after, strange things begin happening.
The History of Metal and Horror
D: Mike Schiff
A documentary that explores the history of heavy metal and horror, and how the two genres merged over time. Hosted by Michael Berryman, and featuring Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Kirk Hammett, John Carpenter, Tom Savini, Dave Mustaine, Jonathan Davis, Corey Taylor, and many more.
The Innocents
D: Eskil Vogt
During the bright Nordic summer, a group of children reveal their dark and mysterious powers when the adults aren’t looking. In this original and gripping supernatural thriller, playtime takes a dangerous turn.
To Outwaters
D: Robbie Banfitch
Four travelers encounter menacing phenomena while camping in a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert.
The Passenger (La Pasajera)
D: Raul Cerezo, Fernando Gonzalez Gomez
A group of strangers sharing a ride have their trip interrupted when the driver hits a woman hiking in the dark of night. They decide to help her, but quickly learn that something is wrong and that they shouldn’t have let her in at all.
The Sadness
D: Rob Jabbaz
A young couple trying to reunite amid a city ravaged by a plague that turns its victims into deranged, bloodthirsty sadists.
To the Moon
D: Scott Friend
A weekend of healing for Dennis and Mia becomes a hallucinatory nightmare when Dennis’ estranged brother arrives and begins to distort their sense of reality.
Watcher
D: Chloe Okuno
A young woman moves into a new apartment with her fiancé only to be tormented by the feeling that she is being stalked by an unseen watcher in an adjacent building.
When I Consume You
D: Perry Blackshear
A woman and her brother seek revenge against a mysterious stalker.
When the Screaming Starts
D: Conor Boru
Comedy-horror mockumentary about an inept, aspiring serial killer at the beginning of his “career” and a fledgling filmmaker willing to do anything to achieve his ambition.
Woodland Grey
D: Adam Reider
When a man living alone in the woods saves the life of a young woman, they are forced to coexist. Chaos ensues when the woman makes a terrifying discovery in the woods behind the man’s home and unleashes something truly haunting.
Wyrmwood: Apocalypse
D: Kiah Roache-Turner
In a zombie-infested Australian wasteland, soldier Rhys has dedicated his life to tracking and capturing survivors for the Surgeon General in hopes of finding a cure.
SHORT FILM PROGRAMMING
SHORT BLOCK #1
“GUTS” D: Chris McInroy
“Speed Trap” D: Chris Freeman
“The Rotting of Casey Culpepper” D: Daniel Slottje
“Safe and Sound” D: Ian Kammer
“Loose Ends” D: Shrader Thomas
“Posted No Hunting” D: Alisa Stern
“Sweet Mary, Where Did You Go?” D: Michael Anthony Kratochvil
“They See You” D: Jared Januschka
SHORT BLOCK #2
“Super Host” D: Dan M Frantz, Andy Koeger
“Lucid” D: Rishi Raj
“Still Together” D: Christopher Piazza
“Weee Wooo” D: Charlie McWade
“Smile” D: Joanna Tsanis
“My Friends the Plants” D: Christine Celozzi
“The Gift” D: Farbod Ardebili
“The Last Christmas” D: Ryan Port
SHORT BLOCK #3
“Shifter: D: Robin Stjernberg, Joel Eklund
“Velma” D: Scarlet Moreno
“Shiny New World” D: Jan van Gorkum
“Specter of Weeping Hill” D: Matthew Barber, Nathaniel Barber
“Caregiver” D: Rafael De Leon
“You Missed a Spot” D: Liam Walsh
“Lethalogica” D: Tony Reames
“Creator” D: Andre LeBlanc
“Neighbors” D: Isaac Ruth
SHORT BLOCK #4
“Pumpkin Boy” D: Trent Shy
“Welcome to Our Home” D: Gregory M. Schroeder
“The Atomic Spawn” D: Arthur Veenema
“Patricia Sterling” D: Drew Fuller
“7 Minutes in Hell” D: Shane Spiegel, Justin Reager
“Red Room” D: Bryan M. Ferguson
“The Pey” D: Ramone Menon
“Performance Anxiety” D: Trey Anderson
SHORT BLOCK #5
“Break Any Spell” D: Anton Jøsef
“Take Him Down” D: Joe Raasch
“Ruben the Roller Roo” D: Will Prescott
“The Monster at Home” D: Roger Francis Cook
“Death in a Box” D: Simeon Gregory
“Woodland Cemetery” D: Niels Bourgonje
“They Watch” D: Andre LeBlanc
“L.U.N.A.” D: Blake Vaz
ONLINE BLOCK #1
“Munkie” D: Steven Chow
“Tapehead” D: Jason Zink
“Viral” D: Michael Rich
“Hip Cat” D: Josh Kirk
“The Sound” D: Jason-Christopher Mayer
“The Courier” D: Jon Robben, Zach Wiegmann
ONLINE BLOCK #2
“The Bottom” D: Morgan Ruaidhrí O’Sullivan, James Kautz
“Creeper” D: Melissa Scrivner Love, David Love
“The Fuzzies” D: Josh Funk
“Papa Voodoo” D: Kyle Ensrude
“You are Trash!” D: Andy Koeger, Dan Frantz
“Distance” D: Patrick Michael Rea
“Everytime We Meet for Ice Cream Your Fucking Face Explodes” D: Anthony Cousins
Credit: Shudder
EVENT PROGRAMMING
Panic Fest is more than just a film festival. Each year features a curated selection of events and live podcasts!
Bubba Ho-Tep w/ a Joe Bob Briggs & Darcy the Mail Girl intro and meet-and-greet
Sleepwalkers 30th Anniversary with Director Mick Garris
Shakespeare’s Shitstorm with Lloyd Kaufman
Cult Podcast
Frightday Podcast (Virtual)
Horror Virgin Podcast
My Neighbors are Dead Podcast (Virtual)
Nightmare Junkhead Podcast
Nightmare on Film Street Podcast
