KHFF RETURNS OCTOBER 21-24

The Knoxville Horror Film Fest will present its lucky 13th annual weekend of cinematic scares Thursday, October 21 through Sunday, October 24, with events split between Maryville, Tennessee’s Parkway Drive-In and our home base at Central Cinema in Knoxville.

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10.16.21

WEEKEND PASSES SOLD OUT! + KHFF13 JUDGES

Full festival passes to KHFF 2021 have officially sold out, but it's not too late to get in on some of the best fun of the festival... we continue to offer advance single ($25/person) and two-night ($45/person) passes to Thursday & Friday's Parkway Drive-In programming, and will also be offering admission at the gate!

We'd also love to introduce you to this year's jury panels, coordinated by KHFF BFF Jill Gevargizian. Our 2021 Short Film Competition will be judged by award-winning short filmmaker Izzy Lee, screenwriter Eric Havens (The Stylist) and Fangoria columnist Anya Stanley; our 2021 Feature Film Competition will be judged by director Axelle Carolyn (Tales Of Halloween, The Manor), film critic Marisa Mirabal and Bram Stoker Award-winning writer Adam Cesare; and our Tennessee Terrors and Grindhouse Grind-out competitions will be judged by local filmmaker Paige Taylor and KHFF team members Jason Gann & Austin McLaurine.

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9.18.21

KHFF13 SHORT FILM LINEUP

The 21 selections in this year’s KHFF Touring Short Film Competition are J.M. Logan’s The Relic, The Estrada Brothers’ The Wereback, Chris McInroy’s Guts, Lucas Godfrey’s Snowblind, Joe Reilly’s The Lake Parasite, Joanna Tsanis’s Smile, Gregory Foltynowicz’s Lachesis, John Veron’s Annie, We’re Here For You, Minsun Park & Teddy Tenenbaum’s Koreatown Ghost Story, David Mikalson’s Stuck, Ali Chappell’s Verified, Anthony Cousins’s Every Time We Meet For Ice Cream Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes, Michael Kratochvil’s Sweet Mary, Where Did You Go, Sophie Mair & Dan Gitsham’s The Thing That Ate The Birds, Sebastian Candia’s Night Of The Pigs, Anthony R. Williams’s Wich, Kristoffer Aaron Morgan’s Seek, Nathan Crooker’s #NoFilter, Derek Stewart’s Posture, James Smith’s Monster Encounters and Mónica Mateo’s You Will Never Be Back. These hand-picked shorts will screen throughout the weekend, many paired with complementary feature presentations.

We’re also pleased to be presenting a program of 9 additional “Tennessee Terrors” shorts from DIY filmmakers across the state, featuring Jay Curtis Miller’s White Flight, Tyler Winstead’s Sheets, South Turk’s The Surrogate, Chase Vaughn’s I Miss You, Gage & Ashley Sharp’s Sacrifice, Travis Daniels’s Remote, Myles Johnson’s The Stockroom Stalker, Luke Longmire’s Who’s There? and Wolf Turner’s The Big Bad Woods. (The Tennessee Terrors block will run at 4pm on Friday afternoon at Central Cinema.)

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9.9.21

POSTER & FULL FEATURE LINEUP REVEALED

Hagcult has outdone herself yet again on this year's poster! We've also announced the remaining films of this year's feature lineup, including some exciting new additions! It's a battle of the 1981 werewolf flicks as The Howling and An American Werewolf in London screen back-to-back nights at the Parkway under a full moon. We've nabbed two of the 2021 festival circuit's highest-profile genre films with Mad God and Hellbender. And we're pleased to present a special screening of The Last Wolf, a documentary about the tragic but notable life of Knoxville-based cult fiction writer Karl Edward Wagner. Check out the full lineup below!

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8.13.21

IMPORTANT VACCINATION NOTICE

(does not apply to Parkway Drive-in)

Please note: due to the extended close-quarters nature of our Central Cinema programming, we will be requiring full KHFF 2021 Festival Passholders to provide proof of full vaccination (two weeks out from final shot) as they check in for the festival. We regret any disappointment or bad feelings this may cause, but our fest family's comfort and safety come first!

TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21
at the PARKWAY DRIVE-IN

Thursday night starts things out right with a triple feature at the Parkway ($25/$45) featuring John Carpenter's The Fog (7:45pm), Studiocanal/VDM's 40th anniversary restoration of The Howling (9:30pm) and rock & roll cult obsession Trick Or Treat (11:15pm), each accompanied by a hand-picked short film!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22
at the PARKWAY DRIVE-IN

Friday night's festivities at the Parkway ($25/$45) includes two short films (7:30pm), the trailers of the 2021 Grindhouse Grind-out filmmaking competition (8:15pm), an obligatory visit to Crystal Lake with the dubiously-titled fan favorite Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (9:30pm), and a second night of lycanthrope madness with An American Werewolf in London (11:15pm).

FRIDAY THRU SUNDAY
at CENTRAL CINEMA

The fun continues for full festival passholders ($100, proof of vaccination required) as we move to the more intimate Central Cinema screening room for a weekend crammed with stellar shorts and a bevy of terrific feature presentations, including the newest from KHFF stalwart Ricky Bates and a 4K restoration of 1981's Possession! 

PLUS HOURS OF SHORT FILMS

including our Tennessee Terrors program of regional films (4pm Friday) and our core Touring Short Film Competition, featuring 21 shorts scheduled throughout the weekend.

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Visit our KHFF 2021 Letterboxd list for a closer look at this year's films!

KHFF LOCAL SELECTS

Though our KHFF schedule is full to the brim, we wanted to give local audiences a chance to catch two very special feature presentations with a local angle: the long-awaited Central Cinema premiere of Doug McDaniel's locally-produced psychedelic rock musical Flirting With Azrael  (Wednesday, October 20) and KHFF feature competitor The Last Wolf, a documentary detailing the tragic story of Knoxville cult fiction author Karl Edward Wagner.

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These screenings are free to festival passholders and $10 for the general public.

PAST FESTIVALS

Click through the posters for Letterboxd lists detailing each year's lineup!

ALL ABOUT KHFF 

Launched in 2009 with a single evening program of local & touring short films, the Knoxville Horror Film Fest has grown into a four-night extravaganza of exciting features and unmissable short films, including special events like live podcasts, trivia sessions and  our annual Grindhouse Grind-out filmmaking competition. We’re proud to be not only East Tennessee’s longest-running film festival but also one of the Southeast’s premier annual genre film events.

After a decade of screening at local venues like the Pilot Light, Relix Variety Theatre, Scruffy City Hall and Regal Cinemas Downtown West 8, the KHFF crew in 2018 opened single-screen moviehouse Central Cinema, which now serves as the festival’s home base. Between our theater’s intimate 88-seat setting and high-profile festival screenings at larger venues like Downtown West and Maryville’s Parkway Drive-In, hundreds of horror fans from around the region enjoy KHFF’s offerings every October.

Despite its ever-growing scale, KHFF remains a DIY labor of love for the small crew that puts it on each year, and we like to think the result is a film festival clearly run by fans, for fans.