After eleven days of truly horrifying films screened in sunny Florida, Popcorn Frights Film Festival has awarded eight films from their massive lineup with this year’s awards. After screening over a hundred and thirty films from over twenty countries, FANGORIA is excited to partner with the festival to announce this year’s award winners from across seven program categories.
Annapurna Sriram’s pastel-tinged horror comedy Fucktoys took home the biggest prize of the festival, the jury award for Best Feature Film. “This film has been such a long journey for me and Tim and is truly the embodiment of indie filmmaking and outsider art,” Sriram said in response to the win. “I am grateful that we got to play to such an amazing audience at the festival and this award is the cherry on top to a magical fest.”
The festival’s audience, however, awarded Tina Romero’s Queens of the Dead their ultimate prize for feature films, as well as crowning Andrew Bowser’s Frankenbabes From Beyond the Grave the ultimate short film of the celebration. “I had an absolute blast watching our film with this cool, freaky, kind and fun South Florida horror community,” Romero said, “A community that proves there is still a place in this world for indie filmmaking. This is exactly why we make movies!”
Other awards given at this year’s festival included Scariest Film, awarded to both features and short films, as well as Popcorn Frights’ New Nightmare Prize, awarded for the festival’s best debut film — which this year went to Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy, a horror film told from the perspective of a dog. The awards joined a program that also included films like Bodycam and Mr. Melvin, as well as repertory screenings of classics like Re-Animator, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and Phantom of the Paradise.
Check out the full list of winners below:
Jury Prize for Best Feature Film: FUCKTOYS, dir. Annapurna Sriram
Jury Prize for Best Short Film: WHITCH, dir. Hoku Uchiyama
Scariest Feature Film Prize: NIGHT OF THE REAPER, dir. Brandon Christensen
Scariest Short Film Prize: SLOW, dir. Rebecca Berrih
New Nightmare Prize for Best Debut Film: GOOD BOY, dir. Ben Leonberg
Best Florida Short Film: IT LOVES ME SO, dir. Colin Dean Treneff
Audience Award for Feature Film: QUEENS OF THE DEAD, dir. Tina Romero
Audience Award for Short Film: FRANKENBABES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, dir. Andrew Bowser
