By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
The OVERLOOK FILM FESTIVAL is roaring to life next month in venues all across New Orleans. Taking its name from the hotel in Stephen King’s The Shining, the long-running festival has settled in the Big Easy, and it looks like it’s going to stay. The festival runs from April 4 through 7, with new horror releases, cult classics and multiple immersive events for the well-rounded horror aficionado.
In addition to an impressively thorough short film track, the feature films at this year’s Overlook run the gamut of all that is spooky. First-time director John Rosman’s impressively scaled film New Life is one not to be missed, especially after a buzzy screening at last year’s Fantasia International Film Festival. The opening night film is the much-anticipated Hunter Schafer vehicle Cuckoo, which also stars Dan Stevens and Jessica Henwick. Jane Schoenbrun’s follow-up to We are All Going to the Word’s Fair, I Saw the TV Glow will be playing as well. However, the repertoire screenings of Phantom of the Paradise and Occulus, with Paul Williams and Mike Flanagan attending, are sure to bring die-hard fans off of Bourbon Street and into the theaters.
Behold! The full features lineup of Overlook 2024:
CUCKOO
Director: Tilman Singer
Cast: Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jessica Henwick
Germany, United States, 2024
When 17-year-old Gretchen reluctantly moves with her family to a resort in the German Alps, she finds herself the subject of terrifying visions and aggressive stalking by a mysterious woman who may or may not be linked to the town’s past. Featuring audacious performances from Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens and Jessica Henwick, this beautiful and terrifying Giallo-esque nightmare is sure to make you think twice about going into the woods at night.
ABIGAIL
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Cast: Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Alisha Weir, Kathryn Newton, William Catlett, Kevin
Durand, Angus Cloud and Giancarlo Esposito
United States, 2024
From Radio Silence, the filmmaking team behind Ready or Not, 2022’s Scream and Scream VI, comes a brash, blood-thirsty new vision of the vampire flick, featuring a group of criminals who get more than they bargained for when they kidnap the ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure. As they watch Abigail overnight in an isolated mansion, the captors discover that they’re locked inside with no ordinary little girl.
ALL YOU NEED IS DEATH
Director: Paul Duane
Cast: Simone Collins, Charlie Maher, Olwen Fouéré, Gary Whelan
Ireland, 2023
Set in the world of Irish folk ballads and brimming with lore, this creepy tale follows a young couple who collect rare songs. Hired by a mysterious man to track down and translate an ancient taboo tune, they unlock something that was best left undisturbed.
AZRAEL
Director: E.L. Katz
Cast: Samara Weaving, Vic Carmen Sonne, Katariina Unt, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Sebastian
Bull Sarning
United States, 2024
Survivalist horror is alive and well in this pulse-pounding, dialogless, post-apocalyptic vision from director E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills) and writer Simon Barrett (You’re Next) that follows Azrael (Samara Weaving), a desperate woman hunted by a tenacious cult of mutes determined to use her in a sadistic ritual.
BIRDEATER
Director: Jack Clark, Jim Weir
Cast: Mackenzie Fearnley, Shabana Azeez
Australia, 2023
Engaged couple Louie and Irene are as close as two people could be. So close, in fact, that Irene attends Louie’s bachelor party, all set for a night of fun and debauchery. But, as uncomfortable details about their relationship come to the surface, it becomes clear that Louie’s friends may have other plans in this unnerving and shockingly unforgettable first feature.
BLACKOUT
Director: Larry Fessenden
Cast: Alex Hurt, Addison Timlin, Motell Gyn Foster, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, John Speredakos,
Michael Buscemi, Joe Swanberg, Barbara Crampton, James Le Gros, Marshall Bell
United States, 2023
Not your typical werewolf story, Blackout follows a painter, haunted by guilt, who becomes convinced that he is transforming at night and wreaking havoc in his small town in this genre-bending and often hilarious portrait from the legendary Larry Fessenden (Habit, Wendigo).
HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON
Director: Ariane Louis-Seize
Cast: Sara Montpetit, Félix-Antoine Bénard, Steve Laplante, Sophie Cadieux, Noémie O’Farrell,
Marie Brassard, Patrick Hivon, Marc Beaupré
Canada, 2023
Struggling with her own personal ethics, a teenage vampire makes a pact with a suicidal boy after her family cuts off her blood supply in this sweet and touching tale of friendship and loyalty.
I SAW THE TV GLOW
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Cast: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, with Fred Durst and
Danielle Deadwyler
United States, 2023
Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair) returns with a searingly beautiful and evocative story of an awkward teenager whose suburban life is rattled when his classmate introduces him to a strangely absorbing, supernatural TV show that is abruptly canceled.
IN A VIOLENT NATURE
Director: Chris Nash
Cast: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley, Liam Leone, Charlotte
Creaghan, Lea Rose Sebastianis, Sam Roulston, Alexander Oliver, Lauren Taylor
Canada, 2023
The story is familiar: A savage, undead monster stalks a group of unsuspecting teenagers in the woods. However, filmmaker Chris Nash turns this brutal slasher on its head, following the creature in his relentless pursuit.
INFESTED
Directors: Sébastien Vaniček
Cast: Théo Christine, Sofia Lesaffre, Jérôme Niel, Lisa Nyarko, Finnegan Oldfield,
Marie-Philomène Nga, Mahamadou Sangaré, Abdellah Moundy
France, 2023
Packed full of jump scares and sure to be every arachnophobe’s worst nightmare, this spine-tingling chiller sees the residents of a French housing project go to war with a group of deadly spiders that are rapidly reproducing through each floor of their apartment building.
KILL YOUR LOVER
Directors: Alix Austin, Keir Siewert
Cast: Paige Gilmour, Shane Quigley Murphy, May Kelly, Chloe Wigmore, Joshua Whincup
United Kingdom, 2023
Breaking up is hard to do, but when Dakota finally decides to end her relationship with Axel, the toxicity she is trying to escape begins to manifest in insidious ways, threatening to consume her as well, in this devastatingly relatable monster movie that highlights the struggle between love and destruction.
LOOK INTO MY EYES
Directors: Lana Wilson
United States, 2024
The intimate relationship between psychics, their clients and the loved ones they are trying to contact from the beyond is explored in this hilarious and heartbreaking new documentary from filmmaker Lana Wilson.
NEW LIFE
Director: John Rosman
Cast: Sonya Walger, Hayley Erin, Tony Amendola
United States, 2023
A tense game of cat-and-mouse unfolds as a young woman flees a mysterious facility, evading a savvy agent with nothing to lose as the stakes rise to apocalyptic proportions in this nasty, genre-bending, and surprisingly intimate thriller.
ODDITY
Director: Damian Mc Carthy
Cast: Gwilym Lee, Carolyn Bracken, Tadhg Murphy, Caroline Menton, Steve Wall, Johnny
French, Joe Rooney, Shane Whisker, Ivan de Wergifosse
Ireland, 2023
A blind medium resorts to desperate measures to find out the truth behind what happened to her sister in this mystical, terrifying creep-fest that will burn its lasting, nightmarish imagery into your brain.
RED ROOMS
Director: Pascal Plante
Cast: Juliette Gariépy
Canada, 2023
Canadian auteur-in-the-making Pascal Plante presents a disturbingly engaging tale of a model’s obsession with a child murderer and her dark web search for evidence of his innocence.
SLEEP
Director: Jason Yu
Cast: Jung Yu-mi, Lee Sun-kyun
South Korea, 2023
An expectant wife desperately tries to break her loving husband from his deranged sleepwalking patterns in this cleverly scripted, razor-edged thriller from Bong Joon-ho’s protégé Jason Yu.
THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT
Director: Michael Felker
Cast: Adam David Thompson, Riley Dandy, Chloe Skoczen, Justin Benson, Sarah Bolger
United States, 2023
Executive produced by veteran filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead, this twisty time travel story follows two siblings, fresh off a robbery, who hide out on a remote farm in a different time than their own, only to find themselves reckoning with a mysterious entity that does not like being there.
Retrospective Film Presentations:
THE BEYOND
World Premiere of 4K Restoration
Director: Lucio Fulci
Cast: Katherine MacColl, David Warbeck, Sarah Keller, Antoine Saint-John, Veronica Lazar
Italy, 1981
Lucio Fulci, the Giallo maestro himself, sets his sights on the bayou with his propulsive, brain-melting nightmare of psychedelia. Shot entirely in and around New Orleans and driven by one of the all-time great Fabio Frizzi scores, Grindhouse Releasing’s brand-new restoration is mandatory big-screen viewing.
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON 3-D
70th Anniversary Screening in 35mm
Director: Jack Arnold
Cast: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, Whit
Bissell, Ben Chapman, Ricou Browning
United States, 1954
Not since the beginning of time, has the world known terror like this. Science couldn’t explain it, but there it was: The last of the immortal Universal movie monsters. An inspiration to countless generations of fans and filmmakers, don’t miss this absolute classic as it was meant to be seen, in its original 3-D and on 35mm!
THE HANDS OF ORLAC
100th Anniversary Screening with New Live Score by Think Less, Hear More
Director: Robert Wiene
Cast: Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina, Fritz Kortner, Carmen Cartellieri, Fritz Strassny, Paul
Askonas
Austria, 1924
From the director of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari comes this Expressionist-tinted pulp tale of the macabre, starring the sinister somnambulist himself, Conrad Veidt (The Man Who Laughs). Watch in horror as a concert pianist’s hands are replaced by those of a murderer and hear the all-new score by returning NOLA artists Think Less, Hear More.
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE
50th Anniversary Screening
Actor, Composer and Music Producer Paul Williams in Person
Preceded by Swan Archives Lecture
Director: Brian de Palma
Cast: Paul Williams, William Finley, George Memmoli, Harold Oblong, Archie Hahn, Jeffrey
Comanor, Gerrit Graham, Jessica Harper
United States, 1974
The Swan Archives and its principal archivist, Ari Kahan, will introduce a very special screening of Brian De Palma’s Faustian, fantastical opera of rock ‘n’ roll, composed by and starring the legendary Paul Williams (The Muppet Movie, Bugsy Malone) that has rightfully taken its place as one of the genre’s finest cult masterpieces. See it as you never have before!
OCCULUS
10th Anniversary Screening
Mike Flanagan in person
Director: Mike Flanagan
Cast: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane
United States, 2014
Before he took on Hill House, Bly Manor, the House of Usher and the halls of King, there was the supernatural thrawl of the Lasser Glass. Adapted from his short film of the same name, auteur Mike Flanagan cemented his reputation as a modern master of the art of the scare with his breakthrough second film.
