The legendary Beyond Fest, the biggest and highest-attended genre film festival in the US, returns to Los Angeles for its 12th edition from September 25 – October 9 – with an absolutely staggering lineup of 82 features, including 16 World Premieres, 4 International Premieres, 1 North American Premiere, 3 U.S. Premieres, and 25 West Coast Premieres.
Beyond Fest's screenings will take place at the Egyptian Theatre, Aero Theatre, Los Feliz 3, and Vista Theatre with all ticket sales going to the 501(c)(3)non-profit film institution.
Beyond Fest's Head of Programming Evrim Ersoy is just as excited as we are:
“Combining a celebration of cinema whilst firmly focusing our gaze on the next generation of filmmakers has always been at the heart of the Beyond Fest […] And this year we have even more opportunity to bring together the full spectrum of genre filmmaking to the community that is at the core of everything we do: from Kiyoshi Kurosawa to Brady Corbet, Jennifer Kent to Sam Raimi, we have created a program that embraces all corners of the cinematic spectrum.”
Opening the fest, presented exclusively by NEON and programmed and produced in partnership with the American Cinematheque, is the World Premiere of Gary Dauberman's long-awaited ‘Salem's Lot, while Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cloud has closing night honors. Kurosawa himself will join in-person to launch a 7-film retrospective, and host a special screening of his terrifying J-horror classic Pulse.
Further genre highlights include the West Coast Premieres of Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, Damien Leone’s Terrifier 3, Greg Jardin’s It's What's Inside, Shudder's V/H/S/BEYOND, Spider One's Little Bites, the U.S. Premiere of Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia's The Platform 2, the U.S. Premiere of Can Evrenol's Sayara and the U.S. premiere of Hold Your Breath, with star Sarah Paulson in attendance.
There's also World Premiere of the brand new, never-before-seen ‘Shush Cut’ of Hush with Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel in person, who also hosts the International Premiere of the 4K Restoration of Lake Mungo, Tobin Bell, Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell join to debut the restored and unrated cut of their seminal shocker, Saw, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre finally gets its formal Hollywood Premiere at its official 50th Anniversary screening complete with 12 members of its original cast and crew in attendance.
Following The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the West Coast Premiere of Alexandre O. Philippe’s insightful examination of Hooper’s classic, Chain Reactions. Rucking Fotten returns to host a special 30th anniversary screening of The Crow– complete with an exclusive shirt, and a recently discovered 70mm print of Total Recall will unspool in LA for only the third time in 25 years.
BUT WAIT THERE'S SO MUCH MORE!
The legendary Sam Raimi will host a 35mm triple feature of Darkman, The Quick and the Dead and Drag Me to Hell, Jennifer Kent makes a rare US appearance to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Babadook paired with The Nightingale and Paul W.S. Anderson attends for a rare showing of his cosmic-cult-space-horror, Event Horizon. Toho Studios takes over the Egyptian Theatre for a day with the International Premiere of My Hero Academia: You're Next and a world-first desaturated double bill of Shin Godzilla: Orthochromatic and Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color.
Additional showcase screenings include the West Coast Premieres The Brutalist in 70mm with Brady Corbet, the 35mm debut of Palme D’or Winner Anora with writer/director Sean Baker and Mikey Madison in person and Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch starring Amy Adams, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus of The Bechdel Cast.
That is FAR from everything offered at Beyond Fest so for the full lineup and ticket details, head on over to the official website and the America Cinematheque site and get ready to get yourself to Los Angeles, stat.
