Overlook Film Fest just released its first wave lineup, and it’s shaping up to be another sick year in New Orleans. This year’s festival will run from April 3rd – 6th and is already vying to become one of your favorite events of 2025. All the good little ghouls can look forward to additional titles and events being announced on March 19th. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the films already on the docket.
Opening Night Film
Drop
Director: Christopher Landon (in attendance)
United States, 2025
A widowed mother, on her first date in years, arrives at an upscale restaurant where she meets her handsome suitor. But their chemistry begins to curdle when she is terrorized by a series of anonymous drops to her phone.
Feature Film Presentations
International Titles Presented by MUBI
40 Acres
Director: R.T. Thorne
United States, 2024
Danielle Deadwyler anchors this heart-pounding post-apocalyptic genre-blender as Hailey Freeman, a ferocious matriarch and former soldier hellbent on protecting her family and their farmland from a band of marauding cannibals in a world ravaged by plague and famine. Thriving in survival mode, the Freemans must draw blood to secure their future and preserve the legacy of their past.
Abraham’s Boys
WORLD PREMIERE
Director: Natasha Kermani (in attendance)
United States, 2025
Following the events of Dracula, Abraham van Helsing moves his two sons, Max and Rudy, to the US in an attempt to escape their past. It does not work. Based on the spine-tingling story by Joe Hill, fest alum Natasha Kermani (Lucky, Nightstream ‘20) directs a terrifying continuation of a classic tale.
Chain Reactions
Director: Alexandre O. Philippe
United States, 2024
For fifty years, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has terrified audiences by worming its way into their subconscious. In this documentary analyzing its profound lasting influence, director Alexandre O. Philippe (78/52, Overlook ‘17) dives into the memory palaces of five iconic artists whose lives were forever altered by seeing it: Patton Oswalt, Takashi Mike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama.
Clown in a Cornfield
Director: Eli Craig (in attendance)
United States, 2025
The residents of Kettle Springs can’t catch a break. Nothing has ever been the same since the treasured Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down and now a mysterious, grinning figure has emerged from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time. In Eli Craig’s (Tucker & Dale vs Evil) newest outing, the real fun starts when Frendo the clown comes out to play.
Dead Lover
Director: Grace Glowicki
Canada, 2025
True, poetic, eternal love conquers all — a gravedigger’s stench, a tragic shipwreck, even death! With only a severed finger as remembrance, a heartbroken romantic embarks on a madcap mission to reanimate the love of her life. Co-written, directed, and audaciously performed by Grace Glowicki, this peculiar tale is, in equal measure, grotesque and delightful, raunchy and surreal.
Good Boy
Director: Ben Leonberg
United States, 2024
Indy is a good boy; a faithful dog, he is always by his human Todd’s side. When Todd seeks quiet in an empty family home in the countryside, Indy finds there is a strange, malevolent presence lurking in the shadows — an evil that only he can sense. Shot entirely from Indy’s perspective, Ben Leonberg’s first feature balances bark with bite
Hallow Road
Director: Babak Anvari
United Kingdom, 2025
Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys shine as distraught parents in a race against time as they speed through the night to reach their daughter after a distressing phone call. Lauded director Babak Anvari (Under the Shadow, Wounds) lends his signature tension to this disturbing pulse-pounder.
Ick
Director: Joseph Kahn (in attendance)
United States, 2023
Has-been science teacher Hank (Brandon Routh) is the only one suspicious of the “ick,” a pervasive gooey growth that has permeated through his town. It is seemingly harmless, until now. Teaming up with student Grace, Hank must fight to stop this parasitic alien and the apathy of the town it is absorbing. Laced with 2000s emo and pop-punk hits, Joseph Kahn (Bodied) brings frenetic energy to this sci-fi/horror satire.
It Ends
Director: Alexander Ullom (in attendance)
Cast: Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, Mitchell Cole
United States, 2024
Four recent college grads, out for an innocent late night drive, find themselves trapped in a seemingly never-ending hellscape where they are being haunted by mysterious forces. Questions of friendship and existentialism are explored in director Alexander Ullom’s genre-bending first feature, equal parts terrifying and thought-provoking.
Monster Island (Orang Ikan)
Director: Mike Wiluan
Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, United Kingdom, 2024
In 1942 — deep in the Pacific theater of World War II — a Japanese soldier and British prisoner-of-war find themselves washed ashore on a dangerous deserted island. As these sworn enemies soon discover…they are not alone, as a fanged amphibious creature called the Orang Ikan wishes to kill them even more than they wish to kill each other.
Redux Redux
Director: Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus
United States, 2025
Revenge is hard. Doing it again and again is harder. Emmy nominated brothers Kevin and Matthew McManus (American Vandal, Cobra Kai) present a gritty sci-fi thriller that follows a mother on a warpath through parallel universes in a desperate attempt to quench her desire for vengeance.
The Shrouds
Directors: David Cronenberg
France, Canada, 2024
All hail! The reigning king of body horror returns with another tale of corruption, greed, conspiracy and technology. Vincent Cassel stars as a grieving widower who develops a device that allows the bereaved to connect with their deceased loved ones in David Cronenberg’s most personal film to date.
The Spirit of Halloweentown
Directors: Brett Whitcomb and Bradford Thomason (in attendance)
United States, 2024
What does it mean to live in a place known for Halloween? Set in St. Helens, OR, the filming site of the 1998 Disney Channel movie, Halloweentown, this heartfelt documentary follows the local residents and the impact that the movie has had on their lives and traditions. Steeped in often hilarious communal disagreements and spooky imagery, Spirit of Halloweentown is a colorful love letter to the town’s legacy and dedication to our favorite holiday.
Touch Me
Directors: Addison Heimann (in attendance)
United States, 2024
In Addison Heimann’s (Hypochondriac, Overlook ‘22) wild and absurd new feature, intergalactic polyamory and one very codependent friendship collide when stoner roommates Craig and Joey have to suddenly move out of their apartment and decide to shack up with Joey’s toxic ex who happens to be a horny, narcissistic alien from outer space. Tale as old as time.
The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick
Director: Pete Ohs (in attendance)
United States, 2025
Zoe Chao (The Afterparty) stars as Yvonne, a woman reeling from a tragedy, who takes some much needed time away with a group of friends at their home in the countryside. After a walk through the woods, what seems like an innocuous tick bite has grotesquely unexpected consequences in this creepy little shocker from fest alum Pete Ohs (Jethica, Overlook ‘22).
The Ugly Stepsister
Director: Emilie Blichfeldt
Norway, 2024
In this warped, sinister spin on a Cinderella story, the lens shifts to plain-faced Elvira, who is willing to do whatever it takes to compete with her enchantingly beautiful stepsister Agnes, and win the prince’s heart. No procedure is too gruesome, too bloody, or too painful to achieve her happily ever after, in this visceral body horror from Norway.
Zodiac Killer Project
Director: Charlie Shackleton
United States, United Kingdom, 2025
When a passion project completely disintegrates, most filmmakers give up, move on and mourn their masterpiece that got away. But Charlie Shackleton is not most filmmakers. The wreckage of his derailed attempt at a zodiac killer documentary rises from the dead in Shackleton’s devilish grip as a wry, eerie, post-modern commentary on our cultural fascination with true-crime and collective bloodlust.
Guest Curator Presentations
Ash
Special Screening
Director Flying Lotus in Person
United States, 2024
Mind-shredding multi-hyphenate Flying Lotus pours the psychedelic contents of his galaxy brain into this sci-fi nightmare starring Eiza González as a sole surviving astronaut awaking to discover her crew has been murdered mysteriously in the night. Psychological space terror ensues, as does a cryptic arrival by Aaron Paul, as they work to survive the neon-splattered horrors of the cosmic unknown.
Death Becomes Her
Introduction by Guest Curator Flying Lotus
Director: Robert Zemeckis
United States, 1992
Some people will go to any lengths to stay young forever.
The Descent
Introduction by Guest Curator Flying Lotus
Director: Neil Marshall
United Kingdom, 2005
The scariest movie in Earth.
Lost Highway
Introduction by Guest Curator Flying Lotus
Tribute to David Lynch
Director: David Lynch
United States, 1997
Dick Laurent is dead.
Additional Retrospective Film Presentations
The Phantom of the Opera
100th Anniversary Screening with Live Music Accompaniment by Think Less, Hear More
Director: Rupert Julian
United States, 1925
Feast your eyes! Glut your soul on my accursed ugliness! The man of a thousand faces anoints this seminal work of cinema that foretold the age of Universal monsters.
Re-Animator
40th Anniversary 4K UHD Restoration
Presented by FANGORIA
Actress Barbara Crampton in Person
Director: Stuart Gordon
United States, 1985
Herbert West Has A Very Good Head On His Shoulders… And Another One In A Dish On His Desk in this all-time classic from former Master of Horror recipient and founding festival advisory board member Stuart Gordon.
Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight
30th Anniversary Screening
2025 Master of Horror Award Recipient Ernest Dickerson in Person
Director: Ernest Dickerson
United States, 1995
Fasten your drool cups, and ready your vomit bags! We’re going to the movies! Frights, camera, action! It’s time for the full horror debut of the legendary Ernest Dickerson.
In addition to these exciting screenings, The Overlook Film Fest has also started unleashing its cool lineup of events. Check out the full schedule and buy your badges online while supplies last.
Catch some of our coverage from last year’s festival here.
