Nightmares Movie Pageant 2026 Days Three & 4: Black Gloves, Discovered Footage, and Dwelling Invasions

If Thursday and Friday have been the appetizer and first essential course of Nightmares Movie Pageant 2026, then Saturday was an all-you-can-eat platter and Sunday the dessert. Discovered footage, gialli, residence invasion chills, chamber piece thrills, pulsating area rocks, black gloves & blades, a penis monster…you identify it, Nightmares had it. Sure, even a machete-wielding, jet ski-riding rapper.

Alex Hera’s What I Keep in mind and Ned Crowley’s Lifeless Drop each introduced in on the thriller entrance, every tackling a distinct space of the style. They did so in intriguing methods – typically humorous and typically not – establishing each as movies value looking for out once they hit wider launch within the close to future. After all, this competition has by no means had an issue in relation to showcasing films value watching (be they options or shorts).

Talking of shorts, themed blocks have been on deck for the again half of the competition weekend. I’m not simply speaking genre-themed blocks, though there have been loads of these centering round horror shorts, midnighters, thrillers, docs, and horror comedies. Co-founder Jason Tostevin prides himself every year on curating a couple of hyper-specific blocks and 2026 was no completely different. This 12 months’s darkish choices on that entrance included “Avian Overlords”, “It Watches Again”, “Malignant Growths”, and an especially-striking Italian horror centric one entitled “BLCK GLVS”. All have been nice, however as a giallo fan starved by an absence of recent choices, that final one actually hit the spot. Particular shoutouts to Jeff Velocity’s Crimson Ribbons within the Home of Stained Glass and Domenico Montixi’s They Rose from the Grave and It Was…the Apocalypse! for sating my starvation for brand new Italian Horror.

Yearly, the fest manages to roll out a minimum of one totally gonzo affair filled with bravura performances and bottled madness. No 2026 choice matches that invoice greater than Drew Britton’s Flytrapper. Co-lead/co-writer Georgia Lee King explodes onto the display screen on this gnarly female-led horror opus. Her co-lead, Leah Piescinski, isn’t any much less spectacular within the quieter position. Director/co-writer Britton has crafted a dirty, naturalistic, and imply slice of horror filmmaking right here. Flytrapper won’t be for everybody, however it’s sure to ring a bell with many a horror fan, and it did simply that with the Nightmares viewers.

David Gordon’s Astrolatry rolled out the midnight film items. If in case you have ever questioned what it’d seem like if Frank Henenlotter had made Maniac as a substitute of Invoice Lustig, surprise no extra. Astrolatry is that movie. A film maybe outright destined for a future Vinegar Syndrome disc launch, Gordon’s goopy incel terror story contains a bizarre meteorite, heaps of goo, a great deal of masturbation, and a central efficiency by lead Ethan Daniel Corbett that’s as spectacular as it’s off-putting.

There was additionally a lot available for followers of the discovered footage subgenre. Saturday’s premiere of John Abbott’s When You See It served up the supernatural aspect of the subgenre with a movie centering on a pair of would-be paranormal investigators who discover themselves wishing they didn’t discover what they’d been on the lookout for. A well-worn story, to make certain, however one which Abbott & Co. play out in some very fascinating methods with a really recreation set of naturalistic performers.

Sunday then unleashed a double-feature composed of 2025’s Looky-loo and its brand-new sequel, Looky-loo: Half II. Filmmaker Jason Zink’s two-part (for now) opus dives headfirst into the “killer-recording-his-disturbing-deeds” aspect of the discovered footage subgenre as we observe the titular fiend round on his creepy, murder-filled exploits. Followers of the primary one will discover quite a bit to like within the second, as Zink and his group have delivered a extra well-rounded expertise that takes a deeper look into not solely the hows and whys of Mr. looky-loo, but in addition how we interact with movies of this kind.

Nightmares 2026 then closed out with simultaneous screenings of two movies that deal with residence invasion in two very other ways: John Veron’s Godmother and Eric Yoder’s Demise Got here Knocking. Godmother sees a trio of younger (largely) carefree adults checking into what finally ends up being the worst AirBnB weekend trip of their lives, courtesy of a pair of (not-so-)well-meaning hosts (Dee Wallace, Bruce Davison). It’s a slick, very well-made slice of survival horror that’s positive to make a splash as soon as it’s distributed.

Equally-well-made, however a complete lot grimier is Demise Got here Knocking. The title is a fairly self-explanatory, during which fiends come a-knockin’ at somebody’s door. Shot on 16mm and stuffed with homicide, insanity, and a ventriloquist dummy…there’s quite a bit to like right here. Yoder is an SFX artist-turned-director and he brings his skills to bear, crafting a darkish terror story that also lingers within the thoughts after the credit roll.

All in all, it was a elegant two days of horror cinema spent with a horde of those who I think about household at this level, be they people I’ve been attending this competition with since 2016 or ones that I solely simply met this weekend. There’s no place that this horror fanatic would reasonably be every October. That’s not one thing that may be stated about each competition that has survived this lengthy, however it has at all times been true of NFF for me.

Tags:#BetterHorror Astrolatry black gloves Columbus Lifeless Drop Demise Got here Knocking Flytrapper Gateway Movie Middle godmother Jason Tostevin Looky-loo Looky-loo Half II maniac NFF NFF 2026 Nightmares Movie Pageant Nightmares Movie Pageant 2026 Ohio Crimson Ribbons within the Home of Stained Glass They Rose from the Grave and It Was the Apocalypse What I Keep in mind When You See It

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