The Hellifax Horror Festival returns for its second year this Halloween weekend with a line-up of 54 films in nine programs over its two days.
“We had 1,000 attendees for our festival during the pandemic last year,” says festival co-creator Angus Swantee in a media release. “It proved that there is a strong interest in a genre festival in Halifax.”
The idea behind Hellifax came from Swantee’s attendance at similar festivals across North America.
“There was always an amazing community aspect to them,” he says. “Myself and co-creator Walter Forsyth brought Hellifax here because we knew there was a fanbase. We wanted to help foster the community atmosphere and there just hasn’t been something like this recently in the province.”
This year’s festival has expanded from horror shorts to feature films, including the recently released Hellbender, an acclaimed horror movie about a teen discovering her family’s roots in witchcraft.
Among the many shorts featured at this year’s festival is Hangnail, a new entry from Halifax filmmaker Colin MacDonald which deals with that dangling piece of skin we’ve all succumbed to ripping off.
The 2021 Hellifax Horror Festival runs October 30 & 31 at Saint Mary’s University’s Scotiabank Theatre (Sobey’s Building, 923 Robie Street, Halifax). Visit hellifax.com for tickets and more information.