The mecca for horror fans, Arrow Video FrightFest has announced its 2022 line-up of screenings and there are some crackers to look forward to. Several guests have been revealed too, including legendary directors Dario Argento and Neil Marshall, actor/director Brea Grant, cult French actor Brigitte Lahaie, who worked with both Jess Franco and Jean Rollin, and reviewer/media legend Mark Kermode.

The festival returns to its spiritual home of Cineworld, Leicester Square and the Prince Charles Cinema in the heart of London for five days of terror, thrilling fantasy films. This year’s event takes place from Thursday, August 25th to Monday, August 29th.

Opening the proceedings is the world premiere of Neil Marshall’s The Lair, which he describes as “The Dirty Dozen meets The Thing”. The director will also be on hand to introduce a special 4K restoration of the brilliant Dog Soldiers. The closing night film is the European premiere of Scott Mann’s Fall, in which a pair of friends are stranded up a 2000-foot high radio tower.

Update: Newly added to the festival line-up is Jeff Ryan’s found footage horror comedy Mean Spirited.

Dario Argento returns to the festival for the UK premiere of his latest film Dark Glasses. Other films screening include Ryûhei Kitamura’s The Price We Pay, John Swab’s Candy Land, Dominic Brunt’s Wolf Manor gets its world premiere and there are UK firsts for Carlota Martínez-Pereda’s Piggy, Travis Steven’s A Wounded Fawn, Final Cut (the French remake of One Cut of the Dead), and Jonas Govaerts’ H4z4rd.

The festival embraces the sci-fi side of the genre once more with Mali Elfman’s Next Exit, The Visitor from the Future, Incredible but True, and the latest from the powerhouse directing team of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who will be along to chat about the film in person. As will Brea Grant, who directs Torn Hearts and stars in Jacob Gentry’s Night Sky.

Other world premieres include Terrifier 2, Midnight Peepshow, Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge, The Harbinger, She Came from the Woods, Mastehah, and Ben Parker’s Burial. Ben will be in attendance with some of the cast, including Tom Felton.

The popular documentaries strand includes Orchestrator of Storms, an in-depth look at the work of Jean Rollin, with actor Brigitte Lahaie in attendance. Cult of VHS promises to be a fan favourite, as does Living with Chucky, made by Kyra Gardner, the daughter of FX designer Tony Gardner.   

The Brits are not left out, as there are a host of home-grown talent showcased, including Tommy Boulding’s Hounded, Liam Regan’s Eating Miss Cambell, Pat Higgins’ Powertool Cheerleaders vs The Boyband of the Screeching Dead, Paul W. Franklyn’s Croc!, Paul Wilkins’ The Ghost Writer, Steve Johnson’s Stalker, Christopher Hatton’s Raven’s Hollow.

The First Blood strand features Jamie Hooper’s The Creeping starring Sophie Thompson, Scott Lyus’ Walking Against the Rain, Bite, Will Hugo’s The Group, and Sébastien Blanc’s Cerebrum, starring Steve Oram.

The Discovery screen films from around the world include Wolfkin, Huesera, The Ghost of Monday, New Religion, Everybody Dies by the End, and Daughter.

Other UK premieres include Hypnohondriac, Holy Shit!, The Breach, The Last Client, Super Z, Family Dinner, plus Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein’s mock-grindhouse double bill The Once and Future Smash + End Zone 2.

Also screening are Emily Hagins’ Sorry About the Demon, Patrick Rea’s They Wait in the Dark, Eric Pennycoff’s The Leech, Tyler Cormack’a Tiny Cinema, Alexis Bruchon’s follow-up to The Woman with Leopard Shoes, The Eyes Below.

If you prefer things a little more macabre, there’s Bill Posley’s Bitch Ass, Tom Ryan’s Splinter, Pablo Parés’ Pussycake, Mark Meir’s The Summoned, Duncan Birmingham’s Who Invited Them?, Elise Finnerty’s The Ones You Didn’t Burn, Addison Heimann’s Hypochondriac, David Hebrero’s Everyone Will Burn, John Ainslee’s Do Not Disturb, Carter Smith’s Swallowed, Grégory Beghin’s Deep Fear, and Erik Boccio and London May’s Night of the Bastard.

Think that’s everything? Nope, there’s more… Hannah Barlow’s Sissy, Joseph Winter’s Deadstream, Sylvia Caminer’s Follow Her, and the world premiere of Control, the first Canadian sci-fi film to use real-time virtual production tools.

Among the special events are sneak peeks at The Devil’s Hour, coming to Prime Video with cast and crew attending, a preview of Wreck, a comedy horror series heading to BBC Three, and footage from the eagerly-awaited documentary series looking at the saucy ‘70s cinema, Keeping the British End Up. A new stage show, Duelling Egos: An Audience with Alan and Mark, pits FrightFest co-founder Alan Jones against Mark Kermode. Plus there’s the return of The Duke Mitchell Film Party, the Arrow Video Podcast, and the night before the festival starts, there’s a pub quiz hosted by The Evolution of Horror podcast taking place at the Phoenix Artist Club.

Festival co-director Paul McEvoy said: “We are absolutely delighted with this year’s fantastic Arrow Video FrightFest line-up. This is the wildest and most diverse selection we have ever assembled. The mix includes a stunning variety of the latest must-see SF, thriller, fantasy and horror titles from around the world. With a vast array of premiere screenings, special events and incredible guests the Cineworld Leicester Square and The Prince Charles Cinema will be the ONLY places for film lovers to be over the late August Bank Holiday weekend and we cannot wait to unleash our prime selections to our wonderful audience.”

Arrow Video FrightFest has also announced two new presenting sponsors – SHUDDER and 101 FILMS. The Super screen at the Cineworld Leicester Square will be known as The Shudder Screen and the three Discovery screens will be known as 101 FILMS Discovery Screens 1, 2, and 3.

Tickets are on sale from Saturday, July 16th at noon and single tickets will be available from Saturday, July 23rd at noon. For more information, head over to https://www.frightfest.co.uk/

The poster for this year’s Arrow Video FrightFest has been unleashed. Painted by the legendary Graham Humphreys, it depicts some of the iconic films that have been screened in the past at the festival of fear.

Talking about the design, Graham revealed: “The predominant theme is a celebration of past ‘trophy’ films. I took my inspiration references from an old paperback cover ‘Vincent Price presents: The Price of Fear’, in which Vincent’s head is depicted mounted on a wooden shield. It seemed the perfect way to represent the films, with key portraiture represented as mounted heads. Rather than mount the head of the regular FrightFest monster, I thought it would be fun to turn him into the roaring lion of MGM’s familiar mascot!”

This year’s annual Bank Holiday event, the UK’s largest celebration of genre cinema, takes place at Cineworld Leicester Square and The Prince Charles Cinema between Thurs Aug 25th and Mon Aug 29th.

This year’s line-up of films will be announced on Thursday 14th July at 2pm BST, so check back here for more details!