The 10th installment of the Overlook Film Festival had tons to offer both casual and diehard fans throughout its four-day celebration of all things horror in our beloved haunted city. The festivities opened with a second line from The Double Club through the Quarter and then to Canal Place, with The Cryptkeeper as the Grand Marshall and the brass band playing iconic horror tunes to set the mood. At that night’s opening party (theme: Welcome to Hell), gogo dancers encouraged our descent into the infernal world while industry insiders and up-and-comers socialized in the haze of the Toulouse Theatre’s fog machine. People discussed what they were excited to see, with filmmakers revealing a healthy level of apprehension or insecurity for how their work might be received. By the time the closing party and The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula show came around on Sunday, things were a little more relaxed, as the major festival activities were behind us. The crowd let loose with some intense horror drag performances involving stilts and inflatable clown suits.
Special make-up and effects designer Rick Baker was in attendance on Saturday to receive the 2026 Master of Horror Award, a giant silver axe that he joked about having trouble getting on the plane. The 45th anniversary screening of An American Werewolf In London (You can read my review in last month’s ANTIGRAVITY) is what festival goers yearned for: a packed house, with an artist telling stories in-person about what got him to where he is, and how he accomplished what we saw on screen. The audience cheered during the transformation scene, again during the credits when the makeup team scrolled by, and sent the Oscar winner off with a standing ovation.
I attended several panels and immersive experiences over the course of the weekend. At Fear Factors: Alt-Horror Experiences, Marita Woywod Crandle, the vampire queen of New Orleans, teased what seemed to be a potential haunted house in October at the Apothescary, with more details to come. During U R Hell: Techno Terrors in the 21st Century, Vera Drew, director of The People’s Joker and one of the fest’s Features Jury members, looked like Mardi Gras incarnate with a sequin hat and boa while she expressed her beliefs about interacting with fans online and espoused what could be a rallying cry for us all: “I have no empathy for fascists.” On the panel Independent Spirits: Genre Filmmaking in the Trenches, Dave Boyle, whose feature Never After Dark would go on to win the Grand Jury Prize, gave the audience maybe the most helpful advice, telling them to “align visions and align values with the people you’re working with.” For the aforementioned Immersive Experiences, they converted a few of the storefronts in Canal Place for the different performances. Hag was my favorite, inspired by Macbeth and presented by Charming Stranger. It cleverly toed the line of horror and comedy, with anachronistic witches navigating modern times. An Amazon delivery was involved.
On to the reviews:
Trauma Or, Monsters All
Director Larry Fessenden was on hand all weekend for the premiere of Trauma Or, Monsters All, the fourth and final chapter in his quadrilogy of monsters. Laëtitia Hollard plays Cassandra, a writer new to Talbot Falls. She inadvertently sheds light on the dark history of the hamlet, drawing unwanted attention to the monster mysteries that haunt it. Heroes and villains from all three movies descend on the Upstate New York town. The film explores the trauma present in our modern world, for both the monsters that dwell in this world, and the citizens who suffer their consequences. Ordinary people struggle through extraordinary circumstances, and we’re all one crazy circumstance from releasing our own inner monsters. All three prior films (Habit, Depraved, Blackout) were screened in a marathon session on Sunday, before the vampire, Frankenstein, and werewolf all came together for the finale. Before the premiere, Fessenden mused on the journey his monsters took to get to here, saying “Frankenstein is rejected, ‘Why was I born?’ The Wolfman is a divided personality, and then the vampire is the cynical one. I sort of tried to tap into those personalities and then portray them as real people.” He insisted on the credits playing all the way through and was ever gracious when they were interrupted with the lights coming up, an apt metaphor for what happens in the film.
Cramps! A Period Piece
This local production had lots of fans cheering for it in the house, and a packed stage of cast and crew for the discussion after. Director Brooke H. Cellars delivered a raucous, c(r)ampy good time, inspired by John Waters and her own battle with endometriosis. Cellars even let out a resounding “Fuck endometriosis!” during the Q&A. Lauren Kitchen stars as Agnes Applewhite, maybe the most normal person in this gonzo camp flick, a homely girl who has a difficult relationship with her stuck-up family. She gets a job at a beauty salon, but also has a torturous period monster inside her, ready to pounce like a facehugger from the Alien universe. It’s a blast, with the perfect tone of performance, color palette, and surf rock soundtrack to pay genuine homage to its influences.
Buffet Infinity
Directed by Simon Glassman, this was the best film I saw all festival, but describing it feels herculean. It’s ostensibly told through a series of ads between dueling restaurants in a fictional Canadian town. But then there’s a sinkhole, and shit gets weird. Lo-fi public access-like commercials drop hints about what’s happening as the rift between the restaurants escalates, and the consequences become more sinister. There’s an absurd burger build that took a couple of days to shoot, and looks delicious—until it’s not. Really unlike anything I’ve seen before, and the Dadaist dreamscape demands multiple viewings because there’s so much detail packed into such brief vignettes. It’s kind of like Too Many Cooks meets Tim and Eric’s Premium Prices skit, but if those things were actually good.
