Soho Horror Film Festival Continues To Push The Terror Online.

There was a brief period during the dreaded Covid-19 worldwide lockdown where film festivals and their respective programmers seemed to understand the need for accessibility. With film festival audiences unable to attend in-person screenings and events, many festivals took to the internet, providing the cinema experience to people in their home. However, with the re-opening of the world, and social outings being allowed again, many online editions of film festivals became nothing but a distant memory, leaving behind those who still could not (and cannot) attend in-person screenings due to disability, geographical location, or financial impediments amongst many other reasons. 

Yet there is one independently run horror film festival that is still continuing to fight the good fight when it comes to accessibility for its audience – Soho Horror Film Festival. 

With the in-person event having run this past weekend from the 21st to the 23rd of November in London’s Coldharbour Blue Cinema in Brixton, festival director Mitch Harrod always ensures to follow the physical festival with the online edition, entitled SoHome Horror Film Festival and this year is no different. 

Running live online from the 27th of November until the 30th (although the online films are available to viewers for a full week!) SoHome Horror Film Festival is as carefully curated as the in-person version of the festival, with Harrod introducing each film, which is usually preceded by a well-matched short or two. As well as 16 feature films and over 40 shorts being screened, the online film festival also showcases the best in live podcasts, with this year playing host to Not Another Teen Podcast discussing Shark Night from 2011. 

Opening this year’s SoHome Horror Film Festival on Thursday 27th November is the UK premiere of Michael Middelkoop’s Straight Outta Space in which the locals of a small town begin transforming into slimy beings. Two street coaches must join forces with the non-slimy inhabitants to fight back against this bizarre invasion. Also screening on Thursday is Matt Stuertz’s splatter horror Human in which Dani Ferris is a woman who finds herself all alone and about to embark on a bloody rollercoaster of human emotions. 

Stefan MacDonald-Labelle’s Head Like A Hole will also be screening at the festival’s online edition in which a financially desperate man agrees to take on a live-in job that entails measuring a hole in the basement of a residence to determine whether it is increasing in size or not. Also having its UK premiere is Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light from Spain, directed by Charli Sangar. The stop-motion animation depicts a gang of thieves who, after being picked up by a group of musicians, stop in the forest and demand they tell tales by bonfire, with the person telling the bloodiest tale being allowed to live. 

Making Megaforce will be having its international premiere at this year’s online edition. Widely regarded as one of the worst movies of the eighties, 1982's Megaforce is packed with futuristic vehicles, spandex jumpsuits, insane stunts, and corny dialogue, and now the documentary Making Megaforce intends to prove just how great this underseen classic is. Having its European premiere is The Misadventures of Vince and Hick, a live comic book style crime escapade directed by Trevor Stevens. Having its UK premiere is the Kazakhstanian intergalactic horror Stinker in which a local alcoholic must contend with cosmic forces as his town prepares for the arrival of high ranking officials. 

What The Tide Dragged In from Chilean director Patricia Valladares sees two sisters visit a beach side area in order to release their mother’s ashes. When one of them returns after being swept away, her behaviour becomes increasingly bizarre. Jump Scare directed by Donnie Hobbie has its European premiere at this year’s online festival edition and depicts a family of cannibals terrorizing a female metal band who have travelled to an isolated cabin to write their next album. The body horror exploitation film Sugar Rot has its UK premiere in which a punk girl begins to become host to a mutant baby, as her body turns into ice cream due to being assaulted. El Instinto portrays an architect searching for a solution to his agoraphobia in order to keep his partner and a business proposal. 

Lead Belly from director Stephen King Simmons has its European premiere in which two brothers are forced to spend time with their father who seems not at all paternalistic towards them. A wannabe filmmaker struggles to complete his film whilst living with his mother-in-law in The Mother, The Menacer and Me directed by Jon Salmon.  Depicting female rage at its best, Blood Shine directed by Emily Bennet and Justin Brooks sees a female religious zealot torture her male captive. And last but not least, Alan At Night has its UK premiere in which an internet prankster documents his roommate’s increasingly strange night time behaviour. 

Tickets for SoHome Horror Film Festival can be purchased here. The online festival edition runs from the 27th November until the 30th, with films available for ticket holders for 7 days.

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