- BEST SCREAMS AWARD – JURY PRIZE
WINNER: Hellscape
“Punching a lot of darkness and tone, this short which almost feels like a true crime story quickly shifts to hell on earth. It recalls Tarsem’s The Cell in a great way – in that it is really scary and stylish.”
Nominees:
Shut – “Shut is a dark little gem of a film with some solid technical flexing.”, The Enemy – “The film feels so slick that it might as well be a perfume advert. Self-hate is elevated into a new realm of meaning and is quite impactful thanks to the sense of fantastical realism.”,
Cardio – “A grim experience: part film art, part heart-attack.”
Compelled: “One fun run until that horrible aftertaste – just what the horror doctor ordered!”
- THE FILMS
- Film Entries
Floor 43 – Nominated: Best Screenplay, Winner: Best Score – “Comical – this is a really cool clean-up operation of a crime scene!”
Just Take One – Nominated: Best Director, Winner: Best Editing, Nominated: Best Ensemble Cast – “The use of editing really helps to elongate moments and develop tone and story. It is a very smart use of cinema.”
Hellscape – Winner: Best Ensemble Cast, Nominated: Best Actress (Madeline Sorenson) – “The film’s cast really help define the little bitesize information drops – but overall, the tone and style delivered are always perfectly tuned. It is a scary ordeal to see.”
Participant – Winner: Best Actor (Bader Kabbani) – “With a strong lead performance, the reality of the scary situation quickly grows. There’s a great sense of humanism to the content, and that is present here with a great script as well as a great actor who shapes his physical demeanor to suit the situation.”
Shut – Nominated: Best Cinematography, Nominated: Best Score – “This chilling and suspenseful piece is a beautifully shot little prison. The music elevates the situation and the overall tone is spot on.”
AGATHA – Special Mention Winner: Best VFX – “WOW! What an amazing Gothic epic of stunning CGI wizardry.”
The Enemy – Nominated: Best Director, Nominated: Best Cinematography, Nominated: Best Editing, Nominated: Best Actress (Yana Rai), Nominated: Best Actor (Tom Huang) – “This work of technical brilliance is almost breathless with how sharp it really is.”
The Monster Mash – Winner: Best Screenplay, Nominated: Best Cinematography, Nominated: Best Editing, Winner: Best Director – “With a series of stunning colour tuned moments, and a retro soundtrack, this tightly framed creature feature film really knows what spots to hit for audience pleasure.”
Ice Cream Cake – Winner: Best Cinematography – “This film just looks delicious… and sounds great. That texture in the sound is yuck – in the best kind of way.”
Flipping – Nominated: Best Ensemble Cast, Nominated: Best Score, Nominated: Best Director – “Is stoner horror a new sub-genre? If yes… then I am in love.”
Cardio – Nominated: Best Ensemble Cast, Nominated: Best Editing – “This is anxiety making.”
Compelled – Winner: Best Actress (Sarah Foulkes) – “Foulkes really keeps it real. The film is your usual horror scream project… and Foulkes plays it straight, never getting too carried away. It is refreshing to see.”
- Webseries
Iron Nest of the Moon
Nominated: Best Ensemble Cast – “A great many caricatures appear in this project – and they’re all having a lot of fun.”
THE POSTERS
Winner: Mister Creep
Special Mention Winner: Dead High
Nominees: Incubus, Flipping, The Bridge
THE SCRIPTS
- Best Scare
Winner: The Door in the Mirror – “Much like the hit horror film Oculus, this film finds a traditional horror concept and pushes it in sharp focus. The page turns are exciting and this is a lot of horror fun!”
Nominees:
Biters and Bleeders – “The sights and sounds of this script are crisply cinematic (and itchy). This novelist should consider adapting this into a book actually, as the words are almost lyrical.”
Merry Bloody Christmas – “Consistent and entertaining, Merry Bloody Christmas hits the sweet holiday spot with expressive dialogue and an easy selling jhorror hook. It is quite a great commercial property.”
Morbidly – “Though it feels a little out of date, this is one of the most original horror scripts that have come our way – it has a sort of recollection of the body horror genre. With the right directing style, this could be a very unique film.”
A Mother’s Love – “The style is here, the runtime is a bit confusing – is it a short or a feature? – I say feature. Go full hog. The one thing I really love about this as well is the set up is just so interesting – this is a modern day spin on a classic concept. Very exciting stuff.”
BOYSandGIRLS – “Much like a José Ramón Larraz film, BOYSandGIRLS hangs out horror in a fashionable all gutty splattery funny entertaining fashion. I mean, the ending is literally stomach turning. Congrats!”
All The Rage – “Original and written with care for detail, this script elevates itself by being an interesting, entertaining and feminist horror.”
SVEN – “If produced with the right style, this could be quite a fun experience – it is a solid concept and has a strong genre motif.”
Whispers – “Relying on a double-edged sword of different horror tropes: realism and fantasy, this script shines as it unlocks the troubles of mankind’s own behaviour. Why are we so cruel to each other? Is perhaps one of the strongest and most frightening themes a script can carry.”
As Scared As You – “What an insane (in a good way) concept – and what a fun experiment for any actor to experience.”
- Best Technique
Winner: All The Rage – “We are genuinely disappointed this isn’t a film we can watch.”
Nominees:
Misfortune Cookies – “Comical and designed as a great ensemble piece – this script has a great sense of scenario based comedy and zangy dialogue to suit it.”
The Black Volga – “With a rather epic page count, this script carries an epic story with a large cast through some fascinating situations… the only hiccup though is this might be rather pricey to produce.”
A Hellish Trip – “The use of locale, and the ensemble, is greatly balanced in this rather impressive canvas of a script.”
Claws – “A real joy with its handling of location, cast and of course sub-genre – Claws has a lot to keep hold of its audience. Perhaps, just to really hit the genre length, a few pages to near the 80 page length would be amazing.”
Baby Teeth – “This script has a great understanding of its characters’ ideas of self, which unlocks many interesting options for how real this project could feel. The empathy is felt in this script.”
- Best Micro Budget
Winner: Consumed – “This one is a big surprise – not only is it an original use of the ‘locked in’ sub genre of horror, but it is also a really cost effective version of it. There’s also no denying that there’s a great sense of tension built up… a sense of morals met with circumstance – this is Ace in the Hole by way of 28 Days Later.”
Nominees:
In-Between – “Tight and to the point, this short script is ready to be shot.”
Hungry – “This short script understands what a horror audience wants! There’s a panic in these 4 pages… it could be a little longer, more character lead – but it is a lovely little scene as well.”
The Unforgotten – “Using the self-imposed restriction of locations and a small cast, this short is really quite perfect and ready for a micro-budget production.”
- Special Mention
Best Gothic Script – Dark Sanctuary – “There’s a great sense of Gothic storytelling here… the characters and their inner workings are very much alive… it feels like a Stuart Gordon film.”
Best Character Arc – Morituriosis – “This unique story unlocks a great lead performance. It is intimate, and blunt with its handling of our human fragility.”
THE TRAILERS
Winner: Barhog
Nominees: The Day “IT” Came, TapeHead – the Return of Jacob Cobb, The Sound of Death, Compulsion, The Corridor, Ghosts of Hiroshima