‘Deep Red’ Leads Forbidden Worlds’ Blood-Soaked European Slaycation

Bristol is preparing for a blood-soaked tour of European horror history as Forbidden Worlds Film Festival returns with The Big Scream: European Slaycation, a three-night programme of giallo, body horror, psychological thrillers and cult favourites running from 22 to 24 October.

Taking place at Bristol Megascreen, the event reaches across more than two decades of European genre cinema, with screenings ranging from Mario Bava’s influential Blood and Black Lace to Paul Verhoeven’s feverish The Fourth Man and Michele Soavi’s theatre-set slasher Stagefright.

Proceedings begin on Thursday 22 October with a South West Horror Shorts Showcase presented by BFI NETWORK, featuring locally produced shorts and a filmmaker Q&A. The evening then moves firmly into Italian horror with Blood and Black Lace, Bava’s 1964 murder mystery set inside a fashion house and widely regarded as a major step in the development of the giallo form.

Friday turns up the psychological pressure with Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man, followed by Dario Argento’s Deep Red, one of the director’s defining works and a cornerstone of 1970s Italian horror. The night closes with Alain Robak’s French body-horror oddity Baby Blood, in which a woman is driven to murder to feed the creature growing inside her.

Saturday begins with a new 4K restoration of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s Who Can Kill a Child?, receiving its UK premiere. The 1976 film follows a holidaying couple who arrive on an island where the adult population has disappeared and the children have become increasingly threatening.

Next comes Stagefright, Soavi’s 1987 slasher about actors trapped inside a theatre with a killer wearing an oversized owl mask and wielding, among other things, a chainsaw.

The festival closes with Sergio Martino’s The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, starring Edwige Fenech as a woman stalked through Vienna while confronting a violent past. Its inclusion gives audiences a rare chance to see one of Fenech’s signature giallo performances on the big screen.

The programme has been conceived as a celebration of Europe’s long influence on horror, moving from the stylised murder mysteries of Italy to Spanish psychological terror, Dutch provocation and French body horror.

Forbidden Worlds launched in 2022 with a mission to bring classic, cult and overlooked genre films back to the biggest screen possible. Previous events have also featured specially recorded introductions from filmmakers and stars including James Cameron, Jamie Lee Curtis, Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson.

Early Bird festival passes have already sold out, with full festival passes, day passes and individual screening tickets still available.

The Big Scream: European Slaycation runs at Bristol Megascreen from Thursday 22 October to Saturday 24 October 2026, with tickets on sale now through Forbidden Worlds Film Festival. For more information, and to get your tickets, visit: forbiddenworldsfilmfestival.co.uk/