Link Tank: The Best of The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival
Discover the best of The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and more in a special Spooky Season edition of Link Tank!
| | Brooklyn’s biggest horror film festival was back for another year of terrifying horror features from across the globe.
A strong mix of feature films, horror shorts, and revered genre classics were shown to sold-out audiences. There was even a sneak preview of Paramount+’s Stephen King prequel project, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, that once again proved to audiences that sometimes dead is, in fact, better. Some of the biggest movies to come out of 2023’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival are already set to premiere on Shudder and Tubi, but the festival’s entire schedule should be mandatory viewing for curious genre fans.
Some of this year’s standout BHFF entries include Property, a Brazilian home invasion horror film that becomes a brutal deconstruction of class and status. Laborers revolt when they learn that their livelihood is being taken away from them, which confines their target to an armored car and progressively removes her options. Daniel Bandeira’s Property is a chilling reminder of how wealth, privilege, and desperation can be the most volatile of triggers.
Stopmotion is a disturbing case of psychosis and body horror where stop-motion savant, Robert Morgan, makes his transition from short into feature films with a dark, personal tale about the creative process, legacy, and an artist’s pain. A struggling stop-motion animator finds unconventional inspiration for her latest film, but the lines between art and identity become impossibly blurred after she succumbs to her own creation.
Mary Dauterman’s debut feature film, Booger, also finds a unique take on the body horror subgenre. Anna loses her cat, but not before it bites her and plants a toxic seed of doubt in her that further festers. Anna’s behavior changes in unnerving, animalistic ways that indicate that a missing cat may now be the least of Anna’s problems. Booger is brooding body horror with a harrowing human element to tie it all together.
Discover more about Brooklyn Horror Film Festival here
The first trailer Focus Features Lisa Frankenstein is here, providing a new twist on the classic spooky story.
Most TV shows have a Halloween Special episode or two, but perhaps the greatest one ever filmed came from the iconic (and short-lived) show Freaks and Geeks.
“In my little family, we love a good seasonal watch—but some we abandon. Just last year, I asked my kids as they opted to squirm and joke rather than pay attention to Mickey’s Twice Upon A Christmas, ‘Do we like this anymore?’ And just like that, a seven-year tradition of ours ended. Pre-kids, I had my own seasonal watches and would proclaim widely, throughout spooky season, that ‘Tricks And Treats’ from Freaks And Geeks was the uncontested greatest Halloween-themed episode of all time. This October, I watched it yet again to see how well my assertion has held. My findings? It’s still the best, and I appreciate it now more than ever.”
Are you looking for a scary horror game to play this spooky season? Perhaps consider checking out World of Horror.
“I notice that people get kind of misty-eyed when they talk about the Junji Ito-inspired roguelite role-playing game World of Horror. If it were their cold husband, they’d have been wanting to hold it for a long time. It’s been out in some capacity, either as a demo or in early access, since 2017, but, finally, on October 19, Polish developer panstasz released its fully-grown 1.0 version to an itching crowd the way you might toss an animal a treat—it slips from your fingers, and it gets snapped up.”
Because nothing can stay untouched, a live-action reboot of the popular Disney classic Gargoyles is being developed for streaming.
“According to reports, Disney+ is now developing a live-action reboot of the classic ’90s animated show Gargoyles. The upcoming series is set to serve as a reboot and chronicles Goliath, ‘the last of a heroic race of gargoyle warriors who once lived among mankind. Free from a centuries long curse that turned him into stone, Goliath struggles to solve the mystery of his past while watching over modern-day New York City alongside police detective Elisa Maza.'”