Wow... An amazing night folks... Best Feature: Psyche, Best Short: Cope, Best Horror Comedy: Somewhere Confidential, Unsung Horror Hero Award, Ash Hamilton! Videos & pictures to come!

"Outstanding! A professional festival - in a first rate cinema. Tons of fun films for everyone. Thanks so very much for selecting my film "It Ends With A Knife" as a Finalist. Highly recommended." -Kevin Lucero Less/Halo One

AMERICAN HORRORS FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING SCHEDULE
As of 08/22/24
OPENING NIGHT PARTY Oct. 4th
Magpies - Doors open 8pm, Skaraoke begins 9pm - 1am
Costume Contest Judging 11pm? Co-Judge is Rita from American Ghost Walks Lake Geneva
Staff at Bar by 7:30pm (looking for prizes & giveaways)

MIDNIGHT MOVIE ON AMERICAN HORRORS:
Bloodspawn one night only 01:16:20

SATURDAY Oct. 5th DAY ONE
The Bottle Shop / The Grapevine Theater
12:30 Psyche (feature) 1:12:19

2:30 TBA

5 Halloween Shorts
Parcel 8:24, Thirty2 8:18, 11 to 6 19:19, Cope ?, Meat 10:53, Detoxification 12:44
Swipe Right To Die 15:22, The Parcel 8:24, AI Dark Harvest bumper 2:00, No Slasher Here 8:50
HELLOWEEN PANEL after 10 minute break

7:45 Red Carpet Walk

8:30 F'd UP: Tales From the End Times 1:31:26
Tickets: https://americanhorrors.net/product/fd-tales-from-the-end-times-red-carpet-event-tickets/
F'd UP PANEL 10:15ish

SUNDAY Oct. 6th DAY TWO
Noon The Cellar (feature) 1:24:27

2pm MONSTER KIDS
Tickets: https://americanhorrors.net/product/monster-kids-screening-ticket/
Sad Jason promo, Klay Kong 31:00, Who is God 3:02, Reel Terror 14:14 (Ted Bennet), Dust Busters 7:45 (Earl Warren, WI), Bialo 4:45, Prolific 4:02, Haunted 10:00, Out of Order 3:24, Nightmare 14:11, Sad Jason Christmas tree ?, HOWL animated 7:47 by academy award nominee John R. Dilworth, Anti-Social 02:25 mv claymation

MONSTER KIDS PANEL after 10 minute break

4:45 Death Orchard 1:10:07 w/Pretty In Red short 25:52
DEATH ORCHARD PANEL after 10 minute break

6:45 Somewhere Confidential 01:45:04

The 6th Annual American Horrors Film Festival is an international horror themed film festival founded in 2017 by legendary horror figure, Hart D. Fisher, who has over 33 years as a horror professional in publishing (Boneyard Press) and in motion picture entertainment. As the head of programming for the American Horrors TV channel (founded in 2008, streaming free 24/7 since 2011 & available worldwide for free on Roku & online at www.americanhorrors.net), is one of the most experienced horror entertainment programmers who knows how to find & develop talent with an eye for quality terror.

The American Horrors Film Festival is supported with a worldwide advertising & social media awareness campaign supported by television commercials (featured on the fastest growing horror channel in the world, American Horrors), posters, postcards, t-shirt give-aways, radio interviews, podcast interviews and an online advertising campaign. If you're a filmmaker looking for the biggest promotional opportunity for your film, The American Horrors Film Festival is it. It should be mentioned, that the majority of our feature film selections all went on to distribution deals, many winding up for sale at Walmart & Best Boy.

Screening original shorts, features, music videos & documentaries, the American Horrors Film Festival takes place the weekend of October 4th through Sunday October 6th in historic downtown Lake Geneva, Wisconsin at the Grape Vine Theater (currently under going remodeling and an upgrade). Triangulated in one of the hottest media markets in the nation, between Chicago, Rockford & Milwaukee, Lake Geneva is a beautiful town to come to for your Festival vacation, with amazing fall colors, lovely hotels, free parking next to the venue, with a wine bar built into the theater!

All of the film festival panels, red carpet events & opening night party will be filmed for a television special streaming on the American Horrors network January 1st, 2025 (all participation is voluntary, if you do not wish for your film or short to be screened online, your wishes will be honored. Any airing of a film, short or music video is completely at the filmmakers discretion).

"What a great festival! Great organization, communication and presentation. The Geneva theater is a beautiful venue. Filmmakers enjoyed first-class treatment. We were stars for a day! Friendly, helpful staff, great promotion. We will be submitting again next year FOR SURE." -Michael Ricci/Director/The Darkening Hollows

"Hart was incredibly helpful and supportive. He took the time to reach out personally before the festival to discuss the film and afterwards to congratulate us on its reception. This is a great up-and-coming festival, and I encourage everyone to submit!"
-John Burr/Director/Muse

The American Horrors Film Festival is hosted every year by Horror King, Hart D. Fisher, who's work has been written about in Time Magazine, The A to Z Guide to Serial Killers, Psychology Today, Rue Morgue & in such films as Serial Killer Culture, The National Geographic Channel's special mini-series event The 90s: The Last Great Decade?, Larry King Live, Jerry Springer, CNN Headline News and more.

Awards & Prizes

This year's American Horrors Film Festival has just added some killer prizes to it's winners packages!

Best Feature wins a $500 advertising package on the American Horrors tv channel!

Best Short wins a $350 advertising package on the American Horrors tv channel!

Best Music video wins a collectible On Raven's Wings #2 comic book (a $400 value) written by My Chemical Romance front man, Gerard Way and the win includes 3 music video deal with American Horrors!

Best Documentary wins a $350 advertising package on the American Horrors tv channel!

Plus we've got shirts, horror collectibles, movies & more odds & ends for all of our winners!

Prizes being added as we go! More Details TBA!

Rules & Terms

The American Horrors Film Festival is looking to break in the new blood, to give the bleeding edge creators a platform to build their careers & give them exposure to a worldwide audience of hungry horror fanatics. The American Horrors Film Festival is looking for the best in new horror from around the world in any of the following main genre groups:

- Horror in all it's forms, whether it's a horror thriller, animated horror film, a horror suspense film, a horror documentary, a supernatural or sci-fi horror film, if it has to do with the horror genre, then you should enter it because we LOVE all things even remotely associated with horror & so do our fans.

The American Horrors Film Festival accepts online film screeners and physically mailed DVD & BluRay screeners. Any applicable submission fees must also be paid online at the time of your entry.

Our Standard Festival Participation Agreement (Terms and Conditions), which all submitted films are also expected to follow is as follows:

GENERAL AGREEMENT OF PARTICIPATION IN THE AMERICAN HORRORS FILM FESTIVAL:

I have read and accept the terms and regulations of The American Horrors Film Festival. I will provide the festival with any additional information required pursuant to these rules and regulations. I authorize the The American Horrors Film Festival to exhibit my film, and if selected, I confirm that an exhibition copy will be available in a required format for screening during the 2024 festival (October 4th-6th 2024).

I certify that I hold all necessary rights for the submission of this film/video to the The American Horrors Film Festival and that all rights and clearances have been made. This film is not subject to any litigation nor is threatened by any litigation. I hold The American Horrors Film Festival harmless from damage to, or loss of any or all materials en route to, from or otherwise at the festival. I assume all legal responsibilities therein. By Agreeing to these terms, I transfer to The American Horrors Film Festival the right to use excerpts of the submitted film, its stills, and trailers, for the purposes of publicity and marketing of the film at the 2024 festival, and for other non-commercial uses related to the promotion of the 2024 festival. I hereby agree to indemnify The American Horrors Film Festival, in the event that such rights have not been properly transferred.

PLEASE E-MAIL US QUESTIONS, ANYTIME:
americanhorrorssubmissions@yahoo.com
31 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • John Martinez

    Horror is my favorite genre and what better film festival to participate in than The American Horrors Film Festival. I was super excited to be an “official selection” with my first short film. I’m definitely going to submit my next short film with them.

    A huge thank you to everyone and the judges at The American Horrors Film Festival! All the best!

    October 2024
    Helpful
  • Earl Martin

    I was unable to make it because of unfortunate health issues, and that rots because I live in Wisconsin! But from what I understand it was a great event and the block DUSTBUSTERS screened in was a success! l hope to be back with another fun horror short in the future.

    October 2024
    Helpful
  • Sunny Mabrey

    Had a great experience with this fest! Honored to be selected and would love to submit our next project.

    August 2022
    Helpful
  • David Weaver

    DO NOT SUBMIT TO THIS FESTIVAL!!! (May 21st Update) - OVER HALF A YEAR LATER & STILL HASN'T DECLARED AWARD WINNERS

    We appreciate that our film was selected for and screened at The American Horrors Film Festival. That being said, the festival organizer has not lived up to what he promised the event would have to offer and provided little to virtually no communication since the event ended.
    The festival was described as an awards event, with categories for Best Feature and Best Short. Each category would have its winner selected by a single, guest judge. However, award winners were never announced or posted. After many unanswered e-mails and Facebook PMs, we were finally told that the awards ceremony would be streamed as part of the American Horrors Roku channel in January. Although we felt that the winners should already have been notified, we accepted this answer.
    Almost two weeks into January, with zero updates from the festival, multiple attempts to clarify when in January the ceremony would be streamed went unanswered. Finally, we were informed that not only had plans not been finalized for the ceremony, but that all the winners hadn't been chosen, as one judge hadn't watched all selections due to illness. This is hard to take seriously, as the event only has two judges and it has been four months since the fest ended. We were also told that "several deaths amongst the festival staff" had also caused delays. What was left out was the fact that these deaths occurred a year or more before the most recent festival even occurred and, while tragic, played no part in any problems encountered with this past year's festival...and definitely didn't prevent the festival organizer from taking our submission fee. As weeks have now dragged into months, and no progress been shown, new and incredulous excuses have been put forward by Hart Fisher, the event organizer, ranging from new deaths among the team to issues with his living situation.
    Our film was a labor of love by a group of people who had to juggle our filmmaking schedule around home and work responsibilities. The money we paid to submit our film to the American Horrors Film Festival was hard-earned, and we did not feel entitled to being selected or awarded. BUT, when selected, we did expect to at least be made aware of who did win awards, to know that awards had even been given, and to be kept in consistent and clear communication about any developments or delays. This was not the case.
    Our film was, at least, screened at the fest. So, if you are content with the possibility of having that for your movie, submit. Otherwise, I recommend following my lead and avoiding this festival in the future.

    January 2022
    Helpful
    Logo
    Response from festival:

    The 2021 show was the year my Mother died. During the show, our Oscar winning judge's Mother died. This delayed us on many levels and hurt my whole team, we were all grieving.
    There are some very sore losers in this world... David YOU are one of them. Your film didn't win Best Feature. That was Girl Next, they won Best Feature. David, you're angry you didn't win. Best of luck to you in your career. Don't enter my festival again.

  • Prateek SenGupta

    Got selected but never received any further communication.

    December 2021
    Helpful