‘The Nameless Ballad’ and ‘Debone’ Head Huge Grimmfest Online 2026 Line-Up

Grimmfest is opening its doors again before the year is out, this time without asking audiences to leave the sofa. The Manchester genre festival will return online from 3 to 7 December with 16 feature film premieres and two short film programmes, giving UK viewers another chance to discover the kind of horror, science fiction and dark fantasy that could not be squeezed into October’s physical event.

The online edition mixes world, international, UK and Northern UK premieres across a five-day viewing window, with every title available from midday on 3 December until 11.59pm on 7 December. Festival passes are priced at £58.99, while individual screenings will be available for £6.50.

Among the films being highlighted ahead of the event is Debone, a South Korean descent into the criminal underworld centred on Gyutark, a man whose mother desperately needs expensive surgery. With his wages nowhere near enough to cover the cost, he turns to increasingly dangerous means to save the only person who has ever truly cared for him.

Elsewhere, The Nameless Ballad follows a struggling British musician who retreats to his childhood villa in Italy, only for the discovery of an ancient piano and forgotten diary to push him towards obsession and ghostly visions. House of Abraham places a desperate woman inside a mysterious cult promising an escape from suffering, while Deadcast follows two supernatural podcasters whose search for unexplained phenomena begins moving into increasingly dangerous territory.

The programme also includes The Virgins, about two high-achieving schoolgirls whose secret weekend attracts the attention of two angry young men, and The First Circle, in which a woman confined to a psychiatric hospital is unaware that demons may be surrounding her. Grimmfest 2026 favourite They Always Come at Night also returns, with its 1976-set story of a family dinner repeatedly interrupted by warnings about hooded figures emerging from the mist.

Other premieres push the programme in wildly different directions. Friday the 69th sends adult filmmakers into the slasher boom of 1981, Juice Cleanse follows a young woman returning from an eating disorder to find her community embracing a mysterious diet drink, and Bleed turns a troubled Halloween family gathering into something far more dangerous when an estranged relative arrives after committing a horrific crime.

Science fiction also has a strong presence, with Mantis exploring experimental technology capable of accessing residual brain activity after death and Lumi travelling to a post-apocalyptic Arctic future where a teenager lives with a humanoid AI she calls Mother. Driver Ed follows a Hollywood rideshare driver whose attempts to help a woman in an abusive relationship collapse after a serial killer enters his car, while Meat Kills, Creature Fear and God Country respectively explore militant animal activism, disease-fuelled madness and religious extremism.

Two curated short film programmes, Hauntings and Possessions, complete the line-up, bringing together submissions dealing with haunting and possession in literal, psychological, symbolic and metaphorical forms.

Grimmfest Online 2026 runs from midday on Thursday 3 December until 11.59pm on Monday 7 December. Full festival passes are available now for £58.99, with individual screening tickets priced at £6.50.

For more information, and to get your tickets, visit: watch.grimmfest.com/home