The Knoxville Horror Film Fest returns October 21-25, 2026 for its eighteenth annual event, taking over Knoxville’s Central Cinema and Maryville’s Parkway Drive-In for five days of soul-rattling scares!

 

Following last year’s venture into science fiction frights, 2026’s special repertory slate finds its focus in hellish horror headlined by William Freidkin’s The Exorcist, Richard Donner’s The Omen, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III. These faith-forward favorites – plus an additional special deep-cut mystery movie – will be spread across the festival, including double feature presentations at the Parkway Drive-In Thursday and Friday night.

 

This year’s Feature Film Competition of festival circuit standouts includes the Adams Family’s apocalyptic The Glorious Dead, Larry Fessenden’s monster mash Trauma or, Monsters All, Ed Dougherty, Brea Grant & Chelsea Stardust’s gig economy anthology Grind, Anthony Oberbeck’s deadpan chiller Little Doors, Dusty Saunders’ unhinged animated treat Big City Pizza and Callum Devlin’s cannibal stoner comedy The Weed Eaters. As a complement to the rep lineup KHFF will also present David Kittredge’s new documentary Boorman and the Devil, concerning the production of John Boorman’s troubled 1977 sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic.

 

As ever, the feature lineup is just part of the fun! It’ll be supported throughout the weekend by 2026’s Short Film Competition slate, curated by the KHFF team to spotlight the year’s best touring horror shorts across a broad spectrum of styles and sensibilities. (This short film lineup will be detailed in early October along with the full festival schedule.) Friday night’s event at the Parkway will open with this year’s Grindhouse Grind-out Filmmaking Contest, which gives local creatives two weeks to produce a fake movie trailer from a genre chosen draft-style by their team. (This year’s shoot kicks off September 23 at Central Cinema; teams can register online or at the event.) And the festival will once again kick off with a Wednesday evening dedicated to the 2026 Tennessee Terrors Competition, focused on DIY horror films produced in and around Tennessee.

 

Tickets to the 2026 Knoxville Horror Film Fest are on sale now via FilmFreeway, offering a limited number of all-inclusive Festival Passes as well as standalone tickets to Thursday and Friday’s centerpiece events at the Parkway Drive-In. (Some standalone admission will be made available for Wednesday’s Tennessee Terrors programming; most other Central Cinema programming, including the entirety of the Feature Film Competition, will be exclusive to those with Festival Passes.)