2024 DARK NIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL: PREVIEW

Sydney’s new ritualistic celebration of independent horror and dark genre cinema, Dark Nights Film Fest, has offered up a challenging inaugural program that is certain to rattle all but the most hardened of horror fans when it explodes upon the Randwick Ritz screens from October 11th-13th.

“Themes of ‘family’ – the bonds that tie us together and can be torn apart – are present in many of the films in our first program, yet it has tickled our dark fancy that much of Volume One is made up of classic monsters,” explains festival director, Bryn Tilly, “We’ve got zombies, vampires, ghosts, demons, psychos, each representation with its own twist, its own bite, its own terrifying cackle.”

Nine features and eighteen short films, including five World Premieres, three International Premieres, and nine Australian Premieres, from all across Europe, the Americas, and Australia's own vibrant horror filmmaking culture, will be screened at in what is the an impressive first-up roster from the fledgling event.

Opening the festival will be Isaac Ezban's PÁRVULOS, an epic tale of three young Mexican brothers caught up in the wilderness during the zombie apocalypse. Vampirism is portrayed with a hard-edged elegance in Kasper Juhl’s Danish shocker, BLOODSUCKER – think PUSHER meets THE ADDICTION, with lots of blood; Elric Kane’s first narrative feature, THE DEAD THING, from the US, is a darkly sensual, haunting parable on the perils of modern dating with a mesmerising performance from Blu Hunt; and, Turkey delivers the savage tour-de-force that is SAYARA, the latest from BASKIN director Can Evrenol.

 

Ludwig Gür’s debut feature, GUDSTJÄNST, is a gripping and disturbing Swedish crime thriller, where a troubled and desperate priest falls foul of unholy and devastating influences; the nightmarish and Fulci-esque 1978, from Argentinean brothers Luciano & Nicolás Onetti, sees Hell on Earth erupt in a remote detention centre; and the insidious shadows of history rear their heads in SOLVENT, from Austrian Johannes Gerzfurthner, a faux-doco tapping deep into existential paranoia and body-horror.

Closing Night features the festival’s awards presentation followed by WITHIN THE PINES, a taut, nail-biting thriller from South Australian Paul Evans Thomas, that does for forests what JAWS did for the ocean.

 

Capping off the killer program is a special presentation of two landmark New Zealand films; the 35th anniversary of Alison Maclean’s brilliant, monochromatic nightmare short KITCHEN SINK, followed by the 40th anniversary of David Blyth’s insane, splatterpunk feature DEATH WARMED UP in all its uncut, deep trash glory. 

Collectors will dig the Dark Nights Movie Boutique, a collection of retail booths that will be set up on the Ritz mezzanine on Saturday and Sunday, with stallholders spruiking their high art and deep trash cinema merchandise for the cashed-up curious, with Blu-rays, DVDs, books, magazines, posters, and much more for sale.

 

TICKETS and SESSION DETAILS can be found at the RANDWICK RITZ Official Website.