With Halloween quickly approaching, most people are in full horror movie mode. Cable channels are pumping out the classics and seriously, who am I to tell you NOT to watch John Carpenter’s Halloween on Halloween?! But if you’re craving something new to fill your yearly quota for guts and gore, check out the awesome selection of new and indie genre films at this year’s New York City Horror Film Festival (NYCHFF). The Festival celebrates its 15th year in 2017 and runs Thursday night, October 26th through Sunday, October 29th at the Cinepolis Chelsea Theater in the heart of Manhattan.

John the Carpenter
Written and Directed by Matt Braunsdorf
Cast: Thomas Beucler, Jared Dymbort, Mali MacConnell
Run Time: 20 Minutes
Release Date: November 12th, 2016 (NYCHFF), December 3rd, 2016 (Other Worlds Austin)

A few weeks back I was at the New York City Horror Film Festival, and one of the films that drew my instant attention was a short film called John the Carpenter, mainly for its fairly clever title. Written and directed by Matt Braunsdorf, the film is an exercise in minimalism. The film is less than twenty minutes long, has a script with almost no dialogue, a cast of three, and one of them is a co-producer who composed the film’s score. As I routinely found out at the NYCHFF, the short films featured were awesome. And John the Carpenter was just that.

Earlier this fall, I attended the New York City Horror Film Festival in Chelsea. The festival finished its 16th successful campaign and featured 50-60 full length and short films. I found myself gravitating towards the short films, of which usually two or three played before the features. Between 5 and 20 minutes, the shorts got their point across quickly, and brought the scares fast and furious. One film was Cotton, the story of the titular man and his girlfriend and the coming to terms with the fact that he is a serial killer in waiting. The writer/director is Casey Rose Daniel, and she took a few minutes to speak with Geeks of Doom.

Check out the interview below.

The NYC Horror Film Festival keeps rocking throughout the weekend, now on its final day, completing its 14th year. This year emanating from the Cinepolis Chelsea in Manhattan, the festival is the city’s longest-running horror fest and was created by the late Michael J. Hein. Over 50 feature and short films are being screened, and on Saturday night I took in 6 more total (2 features, 4 shorts). The highlight of the evening was the honoring of scream queen Adrienne Barbeau with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Barbeau was on hand with her family in a packed house ceremony. The festival continues today at noon culminating with the Awards Ceremony in the evening.

For the 14th straight year, the New York City Horror Film Festival (NYCHFF) opened last night. Started by the late Michael J. Hein, the NYCHFF is the largest and most recognized film festival to deal solely in the horror and sci-fi genres. It is running through Sunday, November 13th at the Cinepolis Chelsea, 260 West 23rd Street, in Manhattan. The festival screens approximately 50-60 films each year, welcomes horror legends, and honors the best work with an award ceremony. After a fairly disappointing week, I showed up last night to take in six (!) total horror films: two very good feature films, and four incredible shorts.

Check it out below.