Romford Film Festival has spawned a horrific child, after years of running a successful festival we have launched The Romford Horror Film Festival.
Listed by Screen Daily as one of the 50 UK Film Festivals you need to know, and Dread Central as one of the best genre festivals, our 6th festival will run from Thursday 19th February to Sunday 22nd of March 2026, at Romford's New events venue Lumiere. Films will be shown simultaneously over several screens the event begins on the Thursday running through to Sunday from 11am in the morning until late at night. As well as horror films we'll be accepting other genre areas such as sci-fi, fantasy and thrillers.
Romford is in London's fourth largest retail area and has a plethora of shops and restaurants close at hand, as well as a variety of hotels.
Since the festival launched in 2021 we have screened over 200 world premieres, showing approximately 120-250 shorts and features each year.
Filmmakers in attendance will experience their film on a large screen in a purpose build multiplex, at the end of the screenings there will be a Q&A session with the audience followed by an interview with either Spencer, Kevin or Peter, all interviews will be filmed and unleashed onto our social media channels. Our team KNOW horror and you'll appreciate the output we provide to your films. There will be red carpet interviews with our audience and reviews on a number of websites. In addition we offer stylised photoshoots for our filmmakers and guests, you can check this out in our photo library. These are provided for free. We have sessions of horror roulette, Nerdly livestreams with Kevin Haldon and a bar with themed cocktails.
Romford Film Festival and Romford Horror Film Festival are festivals ran by filmmakers and people who actively work within the industry, so we understand all the things you've been through, we'll screen your accepted film and part as lifelong friends, we'll support you long after the festival finish. Which is probably why in our festival history over 650 filmmakers have returned with their projects after having an amazing first outing with us.
In our 2024 season we exceeded our expectations with over 1400 attendees arrive on the Saturday alone, to not just watch films, but purchase goods from stands and get autographs with famous faces from horror.
We will have 13 main awards:
Including:
Best Film
Best Director
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Score
Other awards based on similar themes such as "Best Kill" or "Best Vacuum Cleaner Death" these awards will change yearly.