Hexploitation Film Festival

FEBRUARY 20-22, 2020 **One of MovieMaker’s 30 Bloody Best Genre Fests in the World in 2019** The Hexploitation Film Festival is the only festival dedicated to horror & exploitation genre cult cinema in the greater Hamilton, ON area. Operating annually, this fan-favorite event screens 6 feature films and approx 20 shorts each year over three exciting nights of genre film mayhem at the Staircase Theatre (27 Dundurn St. N). The Hexploitation Film Festival is not just a scary night at the movies; it’s a celebration of fringe film-making, controversial cinema, tongue-in-cheek B-movies, and the art of the macabre. "Aaron Allen [festival director] is Hamilton's unofficial horror meister, or, if you prefer, our master of misery, perhaps even guru of gore … earl of eerie, duke of dark, lord of the lurid, sultan of slash." - The Hamilton Spectator "[T]he historical Canadian city of Hamilton (located just half an hour outside of Toronto), is a hotbed for horror." - Shock Till You Drop Founded as Fright Night Theatre in 2009 as an all-year genre screening series before becoming the Fright Night Theatre Film Festival in 2015, the newly re-branded Hexploitation Film Festival flies into is 9th like a bat out of hell with a mission to bring back the fun, communal atmosphere, and showmanship of going to the movies by showcasing shocking, scary, schlocky, and scintillating independent and mainstream horror / genre films to our die-hard genre film audience in and around the Hamilton, Ontario region. Horror fans and genre junkies can expect our unique brand of down-to-earth Q&A's with local and visiting filmmakers, themed parties, and a one-of-a-kind theatre-going experience by fans for fans. Canadian and International filmmakers and distributors are invited to submit feature and short films in the horror & exploitation genres (i.e. horror-comedies, horror-fantasy, horror sci-fi, etc.) Previous official selections and award winners include high-profile and ground-breaking films such as: THE BABADOOK (dir. Jennifer Kent), THE LURE (dir. Agnieszka Smoczynska), WOLFCOP (dir. Lowell Dean), THE VELOCIPASTOR (dir. Brendan Steere), RETURN TO NUKE'EM HIGH - VOL. 1 & VOL. 2 (dir. Lloyd Kaufman), NIGHT OF SOMETHING STRANGE (dir. Jonathan Straiton), RUIN ME (dir. Preston deFrancis), HARVEST LAKE and PLANK FACE (dir. Scott Schirmer), THE BARN (dir. Justin Seaman), BUNNY THE KILLER THING (Dir. Joonas Makkonen), THE HERETICS (dir. Chad Archibald), LATE PHASES: NIGHT OF THE LONE WOLF (Dir. Adrián García Bogliano)