24/09/2026
22-24 October: Forbidden Worlds Film Festival: The Big Scream - European Slaycation
Grab your passport, pack your bags and get ready for three nights of some of the most lurid, blood-soaked, sexually-charged and visually enticing cult horrors from the past 60 years courtesy of our European brothers, sisters and friends beyond the binary, as we take you from the dark shadowy streets of Rome, to the blood-drenched beaches of the Spanish coast and into the seedy underbelly of Dutch literary society (it’s more sordid than you think!)
This year’s sanguinary selection includes the film that cemented the giallo genre into the minds of audiences, Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1964), Paul Verhoeven's sexual thriller The Fourth Man (1983), gory French body horror Baby Blood (1990), the taboo-breaking thriller Who Can Kill A Child? (1976), the insanely entertaining theatre-set slasher Stagefright (1987), a rare opportunity to see the film that made giallo queen Edwige Fenech an international star, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971) and Dario Argento’s masterpiece Deep Red (1975).
So get ready for impossibly bright, crimson-red blood, neon-lit sets, gratuitous levels of nudity and lots of prog rock.
Let’s turn those blue passports red again.
PLUS we’ll be kicking off the festival with a selection of locally-made horror shorts courtesy of BFI NETWORK, complete with a Q&A with the filmmakers.
Poster design: Andy Janes - F**k AI!
https://www.forbiddenworldsfilmfestival.co.uk/
