Knoxville Horror Film Fest

Since 2009 the Knoxville Horror Film Festival is committed in bringing the best (and worst) of genre cinema to Tennessee through our annual film festival and feature screenings throughout the year. The only horror festival in Tennessee, KHFF holds its annual fest near Halloween every year.

On top of accepting submissions of short films from around the world, we hold a filmmaking competition called the Grindhouse Grind-Out in which we give teams 6 days and 66 minutes to make a 3 minute Grindhouse trailer or short film.

This year’s premiere feature presentations include: Lucky McKee’s slow-burn chiller Kindred Spirits; Larry Fessenden’s Frankenstein update Depraved; the “hallucinatory hellscape” of Bliss and the action-horror of V.F.W., both from director Joe Begos; imaginary-friend-gone-wrong thriller Daniel Isn’t Real; the romantic monster movie After Midnight, the Carpenter Brut-soundtracked space opera Blood Machines; ribald festival favorite Porno; producer Travis Stevens’ C.M. Punk-starring directorial debut Girl on the Third Floor; Chad Crawford Kinkle’s Jug Face followup Dementer; and cult sure-shot Fingers, starring KHFF 2018 award-winner Taylor Zaudtke and the Greasy Strangler himself, Michael St. Michaels.

Repertory presentations begin this year with Thursday night’s “Girdler-thon” extravaganza, which showcases the work of unsung B-movie filmmaker William Girdler with a triple feature featuring 1978’s The Manitou, 1976’s Grizzly and a secret, very special 16mm screening of one of his early films. The flashback fun continues Friday night with Vinegar Syndrome & AGFA’s newly-available “Gore Cut” of the 1994 Denise Richards cheapie Tammy And The T-Rex, which transforms the film’s innocuous straight-to-video banality into an aggressively strange, over-the-top experience guaranteed to become a new cult classic. And most exciting of all is Saturday evening’s centerpiece screening of Grindhouse Releasing’s new 4K restoration of Sam Raimi’s 1981 game-changer The Evil Dead, complete with a new 5.1 surround mix and all new score from original composer Joe LoDuca!

These feature presentations will be complemented by an extensive short film competition, featuring local productions alongside a selection of the year’s best touring horror shorts. (Submissions for both categories remain open through a late deadline of September 20.) The weekend also includes a number of afterparties and special events, including a live Shock Waves podcast, the debut of a KHFF beer collaboration with neighborhood brewmasters Elkmont Exchange, and the cursed fruits of the ninth annual KHFF Grindhouse Grind-out filmmaking contest, which gives teams of local filmmakers six days and sixty-six minutes to produce a trailer or short in an ultra-specific genre chosen draft-style at the competition kickoff.