Tubi FrightFest has today revealed the programme for its 2026 edition, with the UK’s leading horror and fantasy film festival set to screen its biggest line-up to date.
Running from 27–31 August, the festival will return to London’s ODEON Luxe Leicester Square and ODEON Luxe West End, where audiences can expect a record 82 feature films across five screens. The programme includes 24 world premieres, films from 16 countries spanning four continents, alongside the returning First Blood, Documentary and Retrospective strands.
The announcement once more stresses FrightFest’s continued role as one of the UK’s leading showcases for international genre cinema, bringing together established filmmakers, emerging talent and restored classics in a single programme.
Opening this year’s festival is the world premiere of Abner Pastoll‘s psychological thriller Nervous. Shot entirely in South Korea, the film reunites the director with A Good Woman Is Hard to Find star Sarah Bolger, who plays a woman whose inability to hear men’s voices gradually fractures her sense of reality. Pastoll and members of the cast are expected to attend the screening.
The opening night also features Yeon Sang-ho‘s Colony, debuting ahead of its 28 August UK and Irish cinema release through STUDIOCANAL. The festival will further celebrate the filmmaker’s work with screenings of Seoul Station and Train to Busan, the latter marking its 10th anniversary.
Asian cinema features prominently throughout the programme, with Joko Anwar‘s Ghosts in the Cell, Korean box office success Salmokji: Whispering Water, and newly restored Japanese cult favourites Crazy Lips and Gore from Outer Space among the featured titles.
Closing the festival is the UK premiere of Marion Le Corroller‘s debut feature Species, a sci-fi body horror examining workplace burnout through practical effects created by Academy Award-winning make-up effects designer Pierre-Olivier Persin.
The Main Screen programme brings together returning FrightFest filmmakers and new premieres, including Christopher Smith‘s world premiere Spider Island, Padraig Reynolds‘ creature feature Gator Face, James Nunn‘s survival thriller Hungry, Ryuhei Kitamura‘s Labyrinth, Federico Zampaglione‘s The Nameless Ballad, Spider One‘s Big Baby, Lukas Rinker‘s Frostbite, Kevin Ignatius and Nick Psinakis‘ Valley View Motel, and The Adams family‘s apocalyptic drama The Glorious Dead.
Hammer Films also returns with Casey Walker‘s period survival horror Ithaqua. Walker becomes the first director to have two features screening at the same edition of FrightFest, with festive horror Home Bodies also selected.
Other Main Screen highlights include anthology The Pitchfork Retreat, featuring Tony Todd‘s final screen appearance, Drag, co-produced by Danny DeVito and starring Lucy DeVito, horror anthology Grind, Lulu Wilson‘s return in The Last Temptation of Becky, alongside Oddities, You Are the Film, Hyena, Stewart Sparke‘s Dead Reset, Imposters and Tribeca selection Ponderosa.
The festival’s commitment to emerging filmmakers continues through its First Blood strand, which this year presents five world premieres: Annabella Rich‘s The Death of Us, Paul Stainthorpe‘s The Brook, William Brooke‘s The Alice Paradox, Conscian Morgan‘s Binding Eva and Ashley Nashville‘s Heraldry Paranormal.
British productions also feature prominently throughout the wider programme, including the world premieres of Lawrence Fowler‘s Grin, Dan Schaffer‘s Electric Meat, Justin Hardy‘s Wrath of the Gods and Howard Ford‘s Zip Wire. They are joined by The Peril at Pincer Point, Welcome to G-Town and Chris Green‘s Synthesized.
Discovery Screen One includes the reimagining of Faces of Death, starring Charli XCX, alongside Steve Pink‘s Terrestrial, Larry Fessenden‘s Trauma Or, Monsters All, Bowels of Hell, Starsuckers, Infirmary, Dracula: The Night Around Us, Compliance and Snapshot.
The remaining Discovery strands expand the festival’s international reach with productions from North America, South America, Australia, Canada and Europe. Among the selections are Slay, Another, Night After Night, Frogman Returns, Invoking Scream, The Flesh Itself, Sweet Violence, Our Effed Up World, Dead Eyes, Bunny Rabbit, Turn It Up!, Fresh Meat and Meat Kills. A retrospective screening of Frogman will also take place, with director Anthony Cousins attending.
The Documentary strand includes the world premiere of Sarah Appleton‘s Full Moon Rising: The Charles Band Story, with Band expected to attend the festival, alongside the European premiere of Rubberhead: The Life & Times of Steve Johnson and the UK premiere of The Fright Stuff.
This year’s retrospective programme also features new 4K restorations of Ghostkeeper and Hammer Films’ The Abominable Snowman, with the latter presented in its original UK cut complete with its original title sequence.
Commenting on this year’s programme, FrightFest co-director Alan Jones said the festival continues to prioritise “exciting storytelling” while creating a space where audiences can “interact, scream, laugh and debate” together.
Full Festival Passes go on sale at 12pm on 18 July, with Day Passes and Single Tickets following from 12pm on 25 July. The festival has also confirmed that this year’s guest line-up, short film showcases and additional events will be announced in the coming weeks. Head to the festival’s official site for full details and bookings HERE.
