Best Director

Best Ensemble

Best Editing

Best Feature

Audience Award - Feature

Best Cinematography

Founders Award

Audience Award - Short

Best Short

3/15 - @Alamo DraftHouse*

10pm - BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON

(2006, USA, dir. Scott Glosserman) - 1h30m

The next great slasher has given a documentary crew exclusive access to his life as he plans his reign of terror over the sleepy town of Glen Echo. A ground-breaking hybrid of mockumentary and traditional slasher movie, Behind the Mask has grown a well-deserved cult following of fans of horror comedy and slashers in the years since its release. 

*Badge does not apply to this pre-festival screening

3/17 - @Artist’s Television Access

7pm - BAD BEN 7: HAUNTED HIGHWAY

(2019, USA, dir. Nigel Bach) - 1h11m

|Theatrical premiere |

Tom Riley tries to take a break from the Paranormal and starts a job as a ride-share driver for DropUoff. The strange passengers and encounters he has on Halloween 2019 are all captured on surveillance cameras, dash cams, and his personal body cam. He encounters a blood-thirsty passenger, a young woman transporting something odd in a bag, a not-so-friendly scarecrow, and a witch.

3/18 - @The Roxie (Big Roxie)

9:15pm - BASE

(2017, USA, dir. Richard Parry) - 1h23m

|Theatrical Premiere |

Part love-triangle drama, part extreme sports vlog with a hint of horror, ex-war photographer turned filmmaker Richard Parry transports us into our own squirrel suit and launches us into the sky. BASE is a faux documentary about base jumping shot in actual dangerous situations.

11am - FTW

(2010, USA, dir. Jorge Torres-Torres) - 1h13m

w/ WWII - 3m

When Shep suddenly dies, Kristopher and Ryan become less attached to reality. As they wander the southern landscape of Louisiana they slowly descend into a state devoid of hope and order. Jorge Torres-Torres (Fat Tuesday, Sisters of the Plague, Toad Road) combines the heart of Errol Morris with the satire of Harmony Korine in this adolescent romp through above-ground cemeteries. Join us for this rare screening as we explore themes of life, death, and (faux) reality. – Screening followed by Q&A

12:30pm - MASKING THRESHOLD

(2021, Austria, dir. Johannes Grenzfurthner) - 1h30m

w/ The Fingerdome - 6m

An oddity of hybrid mockumentary, Masking Threshold tracks the descent-into-madness of an isolated would-be scientist, who sets out to understand a peculiar form of tinnitus he’s developed. Ostensibly a found vlog composed entirely of macro and extreme closeup footage, Masking Threshold is a deeply unsettling film with stomach churning sequences of violence, depravity, and grossness.

2:15pm - CURSE OF AURORE

(2021, Canada, dir. Mehran C. Torgoley) - 1h30m

| US Theatrical Premiere |

w/ Posted No Hunting - 3m

While researching the historic murder of Aurore Gagnon for a script inspired by her story, three filmmakers cross a line. By the time they realize they’ve tampered with something they shouldn’t have, their footage is already on its way to being sold in a mystery box on the dark web. – Screening followed by Q&A

4:30pm - He’s watching

(2022, USA, dir. Jacob Aaron Estes) - 1h45m

| World Premiere |

Filmmaker Jacob Aaron Estes (Mean Creek, The Details, Don’t Let Go) transforms a pandemic quarantine into the groundwork for a household horror story. As brother and sister document their day-to-day life in isolation, the lines blur between a fun family project and a deeply disturbing work of avant-garde horror. Strategically breaking the format of in-world camera, He’s Watching utilizes found footage horror storytelling to amplify the fears of parents separated from their children and children trapped in their own house forced to fend for themselves.

6:30pm - THE COLLINGSWOOD STORY

(2002, USA, dir. Mike Costanza) - 1h20m

w/ SHC Freak Accident - 2m

Shown through turn-of-the-millennium desktops, The Collingswood Story is a pioneering digital horror film. John and Rebecca begin using webcams as a way to maintain a newly distanced relationship when a curious encounter with an internet psychic complicates their lives and uncovers dark secrets about Rebecca’s new home. Before Skype and MySpace existed, filmmaker Mike Costanza’s revolutionary, essential film embodies a phase of internet culture midway between the ‘90s acceptance that, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” and the unblinking, totalizing digital platforms of the present.  – Screening followed by Q&A

8:30pm - THE OUTWATERS

(2022, USA, dir. Robbie Banfitch) - 1h46m

| Theatrical Premiere |

w/The Backrooms - 9m

Four travelers encounter a menacing phenomenon while shooting a music video in a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert. Filled with indescribable creatures squirming their way out of darkness, THE OUTWATERS is a dizzying slow burn of other-worldly terror caked in dried blood.  – Screening followed by Q&A

11:15pm - THE ZAND ORDER

(2021, USA, dir. Sarah Goras Peterson) - 1h11m

| West Coast Premiere |

w/ Filtered - 6m

A grieving mother hires a filmmaker and a tracker to help document her search in the Florida jungle, as she hunts a cult she believes murdered her daughter. Imagine The Blair Witch Project except it’s an all-female expedition and they hate each other… and it sure doesn’t help that each night they spend in their single tent something visits them to set up strange puzzles for them to solve. The Zand Order is a perfect example of the passionate, no budget / no rules filmmaking that can only happen in found footage horror.

10:45am - THE GERBER SYNDROME: il contagio

(2011, Italy, dir. Maxì Dejoie) - 1h28m

w/ Lost Footage - 12m

A virus ravages Europe. Phase I brings flu-like symptoms. Phase II attacks the central nervous system. Phase III: withdrawal, irrationality, extremely violent behavior. There is no cure. Filmed like a documentary, The Gerber Syndrome captures one nation’s desperate, under-resourced efforts to fight a disease it can barely understand, much less contain. Though made eleven years ago it offers images and moments that could have been lifted directly from our media in today’s age of COVID. – Screening followed by Q&A

12:45pm - WESENS

(2020, South Africa, dir. Derick Muller) - 1h30m

w/ In The Woods - 2m

Two days after an unidentified object landed on a farm in South Africa in December of 1967, four government agents, equipped with a Super 8 and 16mm camera, drove out to investigate it. What the agents treat as a concrete anomaly to be examined through Geiger counters, cameras, and beakers evolves into an all-encompassing, existential conundrum.

2:30pm -BOLT DRIVER W/ CRAIG FIXADA AMERICA

(2021, USA, dir. Van Alpert & Nick Corirossi / 2019, USA, dir. Scott Gairdner) - 67m

w/ The First Jewish Surfer - 5m

An unofficial remake of TAXI DRIVER modernized for the social media era, BOLT DRIVER navigates Trumpism and incel culture through a collection of animal face Snapchat filters. Paired with CRAIG FIXADA AMERICA, an episode of a political satire show that never existed, in which international superstar and former Clip Cup host Craig Healy (Nick Corirossi) raises awareness about voting.

4pm - PUTREFIXION a video of Nina Temich

(2022, Mexico, dir. David Torres) - 1h28m

| World Premiere |

After purchasing a 360 camera, Nina starts recording her daily life as a way of developing her skills as a director in hopes of getting accepted into film school. But while dancing and doing drugs, strange things begin to happen. PUTREFIXION utilizes the disorienting nature of a 360 lens to transform Mexico city, accentuate the ritual of dance, and open a new chapter of in-world camera narratives. As Nina, model and dancer Dalia Xiuhcoatl commands the space and movement of the camera, giving this portrait of a young woman’s brush with the supernatural a mesmerizing feminine energy. 

5:45pm -DEADWARE

(2021, USA, dir. Isaac Rodriguez) - 1h8m

| Theatrical Premiere |

w/ Catastrophe Crow - 14m

Set in 1999, Deadware explores the early internet through masterful use of the screenlife format, following two friends who decide to play a questionable online point-and-click adventure game to test out their webcams and brand new DSL connection. –Screening followed by Q&A

7:30pm - MALIBU HORROR STORY

(2021, USA, dir. Scott Slone) - 1h33m

A team of paranormal investigators search a sacred Native American cave for clues in the unsolved disappearance of four local teens. While celebrating the completion of their project in the cave and reviewing the documentary edited from the teens footage they discovered, the team begins to notice anomalies they missed on earlier watches, and begin to fear for their lives. A hybrid found footage / horror film narrative, Malibu Horror Story is the bombastic crowd-pleaser of UFF5 that will have the audience shrieking and leaping out of their seats in terror. – Screening followed by Q&A

9:30pm - THE ALIEN REPORT

(2021, USA, dir. Patrick Donnelly) - 1h21m

| West Coast Premiere |

An alien abductee figures out a clever way to secretly record his own alien encounters revealing telepathic aliens, human hybrids and the elusive “men-in-black”. Shot guerrilla-style on the streets of Chicago with a small yet very dedicated crew, The Alien Report takes the raw energy of a found footage horror movie and combines it with a script influenced by testimonies from the UFO abductee community and the most wild alien special effects you’ve seen since Fire In The Sky. – Screening followed by Q&A

11pm - MY INNER DEMON: A GERALDSON TALE

(2022, USA, dir. Gerald Varga) - 1h17m

| Theatrical Premiere |

w/ Torture Cam - 10m

This meta sequel to UFF2 selection Murder Box follows director Gerald Varga as he navigates his depression after the underwhelming reception of his first film. My Inner Demon is a crash course on found footage horror filmmaking by two old friends who are slowly driving each other insane. – Screening followed by Q&A