Monster Fest

25/10/2026

Four years after Regan MacNeil’s unfortunate encounter with the Devil, she’s seemingly doing just fine. Unfortunately, nobody told Father Lamont (a gloriously sloppy Richard Burton), who arrives as a priest determined to discover what really happened during her exorcism, sending the pair on an increasingly bonkers journey involving experimental mind-melding technology, psychic powers, African mysticism, swarms of locusts and James Earl Jones dressed as a giant grasshopper.

John Boorman’s spectacularly ambitious sequel to The Exorcist was ridiculed upon release and has spent decades occupying a comfortable spot on lists of the worst movies ever made. But look beyond its reputation and you’ll find a visually extraordinary, utterly sincere and genuinely unique piece of ’70s studio filmmaking, backed by an incredible Ennio Morricone score and possessing more ideas in five minutes than most horror sequels manage in their entire running time.

Terrible movie? Misunderstood masterpiece? Magnificent folly?

Nearly half a century later, EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC is definitely due a re-evaluation. We’ll let you decide.

Tickets, Theatres and Times: monsterfest.com.au

25/10/2026

DEAD HOWLING finds humanity on the brink of extinction after a zombie virus has overrun the planet. Siblings Megan and Billy are making their way across the devastated landscape in search of a rumoured safe zone when their journey brings them into the path of Carter, a solitary survivor with one hell of an advantage over the living dead – he’s a werewolf.

If you only see one Australian-werewolf-zombie-mutant-post-apocalyptic-horror-film in cinemas this year, make sure it’s DEAD HOWLING at Monster Fest.

Tickets, Theatres and Times: monsterfest.com.au

24/10/2026

It’s Halloween night and ten teenagers have decided that the perfect place for a party is Hull House, an abandoned funeral parlour with a suitably unpleasant history. There’s booze, dancing, a séance and, inevitably, the accidental unleashing of an ancient demonic evil that begins possessing the partygoers one by one.

Kevin Tenney’s NIGHT OF THE DEMONS is about as pure a distillation of late-’80s horror as you could hope for: h***y teenagers, gratuitous nudity, spectacular demon make-ups, eye gougings, severed limbs, bitten-off tongues and scream queen Linnea Quigley finding a place to keep her lipstick that definitely wasn’t designed by Revlon. Much of the gooey good stuff comes courtesy of Steve Johnson, whose extraordinary practical effects remain the film’s not-so-secret weapon.

Tickets, Theatres and Times: monsterfest.com.au

24/10/2026

Fresh from Point Blank and Deliverance, John Boorman was one of the hottest directors on the planet when Warner Bros handed him the keys to one of Hollywood’s most valuable properties and asked him to make THE EXORCIST II.

What could possibly go wrong?

Pretty much everything.

David Kittredge’s hugely entertaining BOORMAN AND THE DEVIL takes a deep dive into the making, breaking and unlikely resurrection of EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC – the wildly ambitious 1977 sequel that was laughed off screens, savaged by critics and came perilously close to destroying Boorman’s career. Along the way there were technical disasters, illness, an occasionally well-lubricated Richard Burton, furious preview audiences and James Earl Jones dressed as a giant locust. And somehow they still finished the bloody thing.

Featuring Boorman himself alongside Linda Blair, Louise Fletcher, Joe Dante, Mike Flanagan, Karyn Kusama and others, BOORMAN AND THE DEVIL makes a compelling case for taking another look at one of cinema’s most notorious failures — not necessarily as a misunderstood masterpiece, but as the kind of gigantic, audacious, auteur-driven swing Hollywood would probably be too terrified to take today.

Tickets, Theatres and Times: monsterfest.com.au

24/10/2026

Shot guerrilla-style on the streets of Paris without a crew or a budget, Australian filmmaker Nicky Murphy’s I LOVE PARIS is a scrappy, funny and blood-soaked mockumentary following Paris and her accidental vampire mother Lutèce as they turn bloodsucking into another tool in their increasingly chaotic pursuit of stardom.

Paris wants to be famous. Unfortunately, nobody else seems particularly interested. A wannabe singer hustling her way through the grungier corners of Paris, she’s told by a festival programmer that what her career really needs is more social media followers. So Paris does what any aspiring artist would do: throws herself headfirst into the humiliating pursuit of online relevance. Then, while filming a TikTok in a secluded part of town, she gets attacked by a vampire.

Honestly, it might be the best thing that’s ever happened to her career.

Fresh from winning the Golden Monster Award for Best Film at Monster Fest in Melbourne, I LOVE PARIS sinks its teeth into Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Tickets, Theatres and Times - monsterfest.com.au

23/10/2026

Having already transformed Pooh, Peter Pan and Bambi into bloodthirsty psychopaths, Rhys Frake-Waterfield and his merry band of childhood destroyers now turn their attention to poor old Pinocchio - and boy is it glorious.

Created by Geppetto (the always-creepy Richard Brake) and led spectacularly astray by a deeply sinister Cricket – voiced by the legendary Robert Englund, Pinocchio desperately wants to become a real boy. Unfortunately, his understanding of how this works is somewhat literal, sending our little wooden friend on a gruesome quest to acquire the necessary human components one piece at a time.

It’s a heartwarming tale about a little puppet who just wants to be a real boy. And only a vague, totally demented idea about how to go about it.

Tickets, Theatre and Times: monsterfest.com.au

23/10/2026

You may not know the name Steve Johnson, but if you grew up watching horror movies in the ’80s and ’90s, you sure as hell know his monsters.

Videodrome, Ghostbusters, Fright Night, Big Trouble in Little China, Night of the Demons, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Abyss, Species – Johnson spent the golden age of practical effects creating some of the coolest monsters ever committed to celluloid, while working alongside the likes of Rick Baker, John Landis, James Cameron and countless other Hollywood heavyweights.

But making monsters was only half the story.

Nick Taylor’s RUBBERHEAD: THE LIFE AND MONSTERS OF STEVE JOHNSON charts the spectacular rise, fall and survival of one of Hollywood’s great practical-effects madmen: groundbreaking creatures, impossible deadlines, mountains of co***ne, a marriage to scream queen Linnea Quigley and enough self-sabotage to make you wonder how he found the time to actually make any movies.

Funny, candid and surprisingly moving, RUBBERHEAD: The Life and Monsters of Steve Johnson is both a celebration of the glory days of practical effects and the portrait of an extraordinarily talented man who discovered that sometimes the hardest monster to wrangle is yourself.

Tickets, Theatres and Times: monsterfest.com.au

23/10/2026

In 2006, New Zealand unleashed genetically engineered killer sheep with a taste for human flesh upon the world. Twenty years later, they're at it again - and this time it won't just be the lambs being led to slaughter.

BLACK SHEEPS returns to the scene of Jonathan King’s Kiwi cult classic, where a young scientist, convinced that a dangerous new pathogen is threatening New Zealand, follows the trail back to her hometown and the mysterious Glenolden Station. There she encounters a murderous sheep-worshipping cult, a property developer harbouring a particularly unpleasant secret and a mysterious figure known only as The Shepherd, before finding herself trapped inside the quarantined pastures locals call The Zone.

Arriving at Monster Fest fresh from its World Premiere at Sitges, BLACK SHEEPS proves that after twenty years, New Zealand’s most dangerous livestock still isn’t ready to be put out to pasture.

Tickets, Theatres and Times: monsterfest.com.au

23/10/2026

THE SHEEP HAVE TURNED THE TABLES!

BLACK SHEEPS invades Melbourne for its VICTORIAN PREMIERE at Cinema Nova on Thursday November 12 at 6:50pm, followed by a special cast Q&A with Joe Witkowski (Frank) and Tabatha Killick (Oats), with more guests to be announced!

New Zealand's most dangerous livestock are back - and now it's Melbourne's turn in the slaughterhouse!

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

Full details and tickets below.

Following its Monster Fest screenings across Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, BLACK SHEEPS is heading to Melbourne for its Melbourne Premiere at Cinema Nova on Thursday November 12 at 6:50pm, thanks to Umbrella Entertainment! The screening will be…

22/10/2026

Animation has always had a dark side. In this session we bring together six wildly inventive shorts filled with restless bones, graveyard gremlins, grotesque creations, sinister scarecrows and worse, before giving way to the main event: KYLGOR IN THE GRISLY ABYSS, a blood-soaked, all-puppet sword-and-sorcery epic five years in the making. From the painstakingly handcrafted to the gloriously grotesque, this is animation with a body count.

The program features

ASCENT - Alone in a 19th-century hot air balloon, a man becomes increasingly convinced that something is out there in the clouds, watching him.

BACK TO BONES - A knight and his Squire, resurrected by an evil Necromancer, stop at nothing to rest in peace no matter how many times it kills them.

GRAVEYARD GREMLINS - Two morally questionable graverobbers accidentally start the zombie apocalypse by stealing from their grandmother’s grave. When their grandmother rises from the dead, they must set aside their selfish pride and take responsibility for the mess they’ve created.

GROTESQUERIE - Cursed by day, a Victorian witch and her gargoyle husband return to their true forms at the witching hour.

SCARECROW - Beneath the floorboards of an old shed, a naive farmer discovers a mysterious scarecrow. As the crows on the farm begin to act stranger and stranger, the farmer soon realizes that he’s stumbled upon an entity more dangerous than he bargained for.

VICTIMIZER - A rabbit teacher who wants to be a tiger uses his position to kill his own students and sells the meat to the powerful who gain immortality by consuming their flesh and blood.

KYLGOR IN THE GRISLY ABYSS - Having slaughtered the evil King Kath and made off with his severed head, barbarian warrior Kylgor and his merry band of survivors are hightailing it out of the kingdom when the ground quite literally disappears beneath them. Plummeting into a vast underground abyss, they find themselves trapped in a subterranean nightmare populated by horrific creatures, treacherous terrain and something considerably nastier lurking in the darkness.

Tickets, Theatres and Times - monsterfest.com.au