Dead Northern Preps for Biggest Horror Weekend Yet

York is about to get considerably darker, and foggier. Dead Northern Horror Film Festival has unleashed its full 2026 programme, turning City Screen Picturehouse into a three-day meeting point for independent filmmakers, cult cinema, ghost stories, games and more than 50 feature films and shorts. And when sitting in a screening becomes a little too comfortable, there is always the basement, which will spend the weekend transformed into an immersive Dead by Daylight experience.

Running from 25 to 27 September, this year’s Dead Northern includes three feature UK premieres, 10 UK short-film premieres, two world premieres and 13 regional premieres. The programme ranges from new independent work to a 40th anniversary screening of James Cameron’s Aliens, presented as part of the festival’s partnership with Behaviour Interactive and Dead by Daylight.

Friday begins with a Student Shorts programme comprising Gloryhole, Where’s Ollie?, Hunger, Foreign Bodies, Loop and Nightfeeds, before the 1994 feature Aswang takes the festival back into cult territory. The first Dead Talk, ‘Not Every Vampire Wears a Cape’, will be hosted by guest programmer Christina Brennan.

Later, Twisted Tales & Comic Carnage brings together The Belly, Lucky Bastard, Muff, Bloodsuckers and Pleased to Kill You. The regional premiere of Friday The 69th follows with a filmmaker Q&A, while a horror music video programme includes Bokassa, Brothers Song, Making Music From Monsters and Many Ways to Kill. Another regional premiere, Loner, rounds out the feature programme before the Independent Horror Society hosts a welcome social and Alien themed Deep Space Trivia.

At 10.15pm, Aliens returns to cinemas for its anniversary screening. Released in 1986, Cameron’s sequel will celebrate its four decades as one of the centrepieces of Dead by Daylight’s presence at the festival.

Saturday moves from the Monsters & Mindgames shorts collection, including 3:03AM, 305 Fishkill, Gumboro, The Hold, Lady Puritan, Vowels and Cyclops, into the UK premiere of Free Buffet. Fatal Futures follows, with the UK premiere of The First Day and a filmmaker Q&A later in the afternoon.

Dead Northern’s Spirits With Spirits event returns on Saturday evening, combining cocktails with ghost stories, before Dead Reset receives its regional premiere and Q&A. The night concludes with the Dead Northern Awards Ceremony and After Party.

Sunday puts British independent filmmaking upfront with Home Grown Horror, followed by the world premiere of Evil Thread and an accompanying Q&A. Personal Demons subsequently brings Deck of Many Horrors, 27B, The Tenant, God Forbid, Thresholds, The Cure and The Binding together in one shorts block.

Dead Ink will also present the talk ‘Terrors from an Ancient Land: How Monster Stories Connect Us to Our Roots’, before the regional premiere of Wrath of the Gods, screening with short film Krampus. The Good for Her programme includes Chimera, Dogs Reign, Cegsex, Borglesque, Manic and world premiere Darling. The festival then closes on Sunday night with the UK premiere of Game Over.

There is quite a lot happening away from the screens too. City Screen’s basement will host the Dead by Daylight experience across Saturday and Sunday, while Dead Ink Books and Powerhouse Films’ INDICATOR label will operate festival stores. Q&As, talks and other live events will continue throughout the weekend.

‘Every year the standard of submissions seems to get higher, and this year we’ve had to make some incredibly difficult decisions to get everything into one weekend,’ Festival Director Josh Lawson said. ‘There is so much here that we think audiences are going to discover something completely new to them.’

Dead Northern Horror Film Festival runs at City Screen Picturehouse, York, from 25 to 27 September 2026. The complete programme and individual tickets go live today, Thursday 27 August, at 12pm via the Dead Northern website (or below). deadnorthern.co.uk/

Get yours before they’re gone!