London Prepares for a Double Dose of Horror as Soho Fest Returns

London is set to become the capital of fear this winter as the Soho Horror Film Festival makes its eagerly awaited return for 2024. With an expanded hybrid format, this year’s festival promises to be the biggest yet, delivering a chilling mix of in-person and online scares across two weekends. Kicking off at Brixton’s Whirled Cinema from 22nd to 24th November, the festival then moves online for its Sohome Horror Film Festival from 28th November to 1st December, offering fans a ghoulish feast of over 80 films from 17 countries.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Blair Witch Project, the festival will showcase an exceptional strand of found footage films. Leading the charge is the international premiere of Tim Kasher’s Who’s Watching, a disturbing tale of obsession starring Zachary Ray Sherman. Horror fans can also expect chills from Stuart Ortiz’s documentary Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire, described as Longlegs meets Lake Mungo with a Lovecraftian twist. Not to be missed is Koji Shiraishi’s haunted house shocker House of Sayuri, making its UK premiere at the festival.

For those attending the online Sohome Horror Film Festival, the found footage frights continue with Johannes Grenzfurthner’s provocative Solvent and the Egyptian tomb terror of The Ceremony is About to Begin. Other standouts include the Canadian wilderness nightmare The Stickman’s Hollow and Matt Warren’s Delicate Arch, a mind-bending meta-cinema experience having its European premiere.

In true Soho Horror Fest style, the celebration of The Blair Witch Project doesn’t stop with the films. The in-person event will feature a unique Blair Witch mini-museum and a lore-inspired treasure hunt. The online festival, meanwhile, will host a live episode of the Development Hell Podcast, diving into the long-lost Blair Witch sequels that never saw the light of day.

Beyond the Blair Witch tributes, the festival line-up is packed with international premieres and UK firsts. Highlights at the London event include the UK premiere of The Complex Forms, a visually stunning tale of cosmic horror, and Can Evrenol’s brutal anti-revenge thriller Sayara. Estonian film Chainsaws Were Singing promises a wild ride with its West End musical massacre, while the Onetti brothers’ 1978 serves up bloody thrills with a kidnapping gone wrong. Expect more grindhouse madness from Parvulos, Isaac Ezban’s end-of-the-world coming-of-age horror, and the infamous Gore Things Podcast will host a live discussion on “penis trauma in cinema” with their event Dickstruction.

In keeping with the festival’s tradition of championing queer horror, the 2024 line-up includes Michael Varrati’s There’s a Zombie Outside, alongside the European premiere of Mother Father Sister Brother Frank, a campy whodunit murder mystery. Timothy Marshall’s In the Room Where He Waits features a standout performance from Sissy star Daniel Monks in a harrowing exploration of fear and loss, while the sapphic horror Birthrite brings maternal dread to the screen after winning the Best Film Audience award at Popcorn Frights.

The virtual festival also brings a wealth of exclusives, including Benjamin Wong’s emotional gut-punch Ba, and Someone Dies!, a time-loop comedy horror sure to tickle and terrify in equal measure. Eldritch horrors arrive with Voidcaller, while the splatter-fest Scared Shitless lives up to its name.

Festival favourites Christopher Bickel, Alice Maio Mackay, and Graham Skipper return with their latest films, ensuring fans won’t miss a beat. And for video game and horror lovers, the virtual festival will feature a live panel on the crossover between the two genres, as well as screenings of Fabio Forte’s The Witch Game and Jason Trost’s low-fi Lovecraftian epic The Waves of Madness.

Tickets and passes for the Soho Horror Film Festival’s 2024 edition are on sale now. Whether in person or online, horror fans are in for a frightfully fun time. Full details, including the complete film line-up and ticket options, can be found at www.sohohorrorfest.com.