Our thirty recs for Tubi FrightFest 2026

The UK’s biggest horror film festival, Tubi FrightFest, returns to the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square and West End from 27–31 August for its 27th edition, with a record 82 features. Here’s our (strictly alphabetical) pick of thirty highlights from the programme that we think are worth clearing a slot for. Have fun, scream weavers!

1. Alien (Ridley Scott, UK/US) — Scott’s 1979 original returns to the big screen: answering a distress signal, the crew of the mining ship Nostromo carry a lethal organism aboard, leaving warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) to try to outwit it. Probably the greatest sci-fi horror ever made. 8/30 3:30
2. Another (Andy Chen, US) — A grieving author, Joey (India de Beaufort), wakes to find her dead physicist husband Ben (Bob Morley) making breakfast as though nothing had happened, and her hold on reality begins to give way, with Doug Jones and Heather Langenkamp in support. You just know someone’s using physics to mess with her head, or reality, or both, but this compelling yarn keeps you guessing as to what exactly is going on – and who the mysterious figure prowling around outside is. 8/28 4:00
3. Big Baby (Spider One, US) — A horror screenwriter, Adam Lewis (Brandon Scott), turns a recurring nightmare of a killer in a baby mask into his next script, only for the murders to start bleeding into his waking life. A twist on the usual slasher fare that slides into gripping psychosis horror, gives shoutouts to Jordan Peele – and nails bratty podcasters while it’s at it; although a white writer-director depicting the raging anger of a black man will raise legit questions among many audiences. Produced by Cher. 8/27 11:00
4. Buddy (Casper Kelly, US) — From the maker of Too Many Cooks: in 1999, amnesiac children trapped inside the episodic world of a Barney-style show ruled by a tyrannical orange unicorn plot their escape, while in the outside world a suburban mother, Grace (Cristin Milioti), is drawn toward the same nightmare. An excellent exemplar of uncanny VHS anti-nostalgia (see also: The Backrooms.) 8/28 8:50; 8/31 11:10
5. Bunny Rabbit (James Branson, Australia) — In a climate-collapsed Australia, a young woman (Kate Wilson) raised on scavenged books and B-movies runs low on supplies and finds there is nothing left to hunt unless she wants to cross a few boundaries. Wilson is a superb find, and anchors this increasingly tense and grisly psychological portrait. What is it about Australia and post-apocalyptic visions? The opening scene cuts a little close to home, too, after this summer in Europe… 8/31 10:50
6. Colony (Yeon Sang-ho, South Korea) — The Train to Busan director’s Cannes-launched shocker, in which a fast-mutating virus erupts at a biotechnology conference and turns it into a hive of body-horror carnage. A massive step back up from Yeon’s disappointing Penninsula, this gloopy zombie-adjacent hive-mind horror really knows how to kick it up a notch with a great third act. 8/27 8:15
7. Crazy Lips (Hirohisa Sasaki, Japan) — A restored 2000 cult oddity in which Satomi (Hitomi Miwa), her brother accused of a killing spree, consults a psychic and unleashes something far stranger than the straightforward answers she seeks. Features the most delightfully bizarre, gonzo take on the FBI you’ll ever see, unless you watch the sequel (also playing). 8/28 6:30; 8/30 3:20
8. Dead Eyes (Richard E. Williams, Australia) — Told entirely in first person POV, this strange offering follows Sean (Rijen Laine) and his fiancée Grace (Ana Thu Nguyen) into a remote forest to find his vanished father, only to discover he has been hiding a secret about Sean’s dead sister — and that the woods are crawling with feral creatures. This low-budget gem is genuinely deranged, and full of unexpected delights. 8/28 11:00
9. Dracula: The Night Around Us (Chris Schwab, US) — Schwab relocates Stoker to present-day Los Angeles, where asylum doctor John Seward finds fragile hope in his new neighbour Mina and her daughter Lucy, just as an ancient predator stirs in the sewers below and begins gathering his undead brides. This stripped back aesthetic of this not-entirely-unfaithful take on Dracula lands somewhere between Larry Fessenden and Jean Rollin (complimentary). 8/30 9:05
10. Drag (Raviv Ullman & Greg Yagolnitzer, US) — A body-punishment comedy in which a burglar (Lizzy Caplan) throws out her back mid-heist and, immobilised upstairs, depends on her estranged sister (Lucy DeVito, also producing with her dad) to get them back out of the host before the homeowner (John Stamos) returns. A unique mix of slapstick and toe-curling injuries results, with a nasty edge it never lets go of. 8/28 8:45
11. Faces of Death (Daniel Goldhaber, US) — Goldhaber’s meta retooling of the 1978 mondo shocker, following a social-media content moderator who stumbles on snuff videos restaging the original’s death scenes and is pulled into a spiral of online murder, with Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery and Charli XCX. If you’re hoping for a truly out-there gore-a-thon you may be disappointed, but as a playful thriller it goes gangbusters – albeit more XCX then XXX. 8/28 6:00
12. The Flesh Itself (Ian SBF, Brazil) — Three soldiers deserting the 1870 Paraguayan War stumble on a secluded farmhouse and its two lone occupants, and their apparent refuge curdles into nightmare. One for fans of slow burning “this is going nowhere good, but what exactly is this creepy guy up to?” mystery horror, with a fun reveal at the end. 8/29 6:00; 8/31 1:30
13. Ghost in the Cell (Joko Anwar, Indonesia) — In a corrupt high-security prison, inmate Anggoro (Abimana Aryasatya) and warring gangs are forced to unite when a supernatural force begins killing prisoners and arranging their bodies as grotesque installations. Features, and I can’t emphasise this enough, a big dance sequence. A must-watch for fans of Asian horror. 8/29 11:10
14. Gore from Outer Space (Hirohisa Sasaki, Japan) — Sasaki’s restored 2001 companion to Crazy Lips, in which a woman condemned for murdering her daughter recounts to a nun a tale that spirals into sci-fi lunacy. Features the return of the two weirdest FBI agents in cinematic history, this sequel makes it even clearer that these films are basically The X-Files on bath salts. 8/29 3:45; 8/30 6:15
15. Home Bodies (Casey Walker, Canada) — Pre-teen twins Red (Emma Ho) and Blue (Ian Ho), raised in sealed isolation inside an automated house ruled by a disembodied voice they call Papa, have their world upended when a Christmas-like holiday delivers the “gift” of a silent androgynous stranger, Pal (Ess Hödlmoser). A sci-fi mystery box that will appeal to fans of Cube, or last year’s Brick. 8/29 8:35
16. Imposters (Caleb Phillips, US) — Phillips’s supernatural mystery follows Marie (Jessica Rothe) and Paul (Charlie Barnett), whose infant son vanishes before a stranger offers an mysterious route to getting him back. To say any more would invite spoilers, but it’s not long before we end up in quintessentially Rothe territory – things get conceptually weird, fast. 8/28 10:30
17. Infirmary (Nicholas Pineda, US) — Pineda’s found-footage debut assembles bodycam and CCTV from ex-Marine Edward (Paul Syre)’s first night guarding the derelict Wilshire Infirmary, where an apparent intruder proves the least of their problems. I watched this with my dog, and the combination of body-cam POV footage, low droning on the soundtrack, and cold-blooded dread led to a lot of howling. You and me both, girl. 8/30 6:50
18. Ithaqua (Casey Walker, Canada) — Hammer’s return, and Walker’s second film in the programme: in the failing fur trade of 1800s Canada, a mercenary tries to hold a starving, snowbound outpost together against the cold, the hunger and a watching evil that leaves its victims craving human flesh. Wendigo fun that starts low key and just keeps on building. Worth it for the guts and gore, plus Kevin Durand having a lot of fun with vocal stylings that sound a bit like Tom Hardy’s Bane. Also stars Micheal Pitt and Luke Hemsworth; you know what you’re getting here, a movie that walks a fine line between serious and hokey, and makes it work. 8/29 3:30
19. Lesions (Codey S. Wilson, US) — A couple’s breakup is derailed when the husband receives a devastating diagnosis, and their retreat into isolation curdles into a night of violence and transformation, with Houston (Alexander McPherson) and Lise (Elsa Ames). Genuinely bewildering, in a good way. 8/29 3:45
20. Meat Kills (Martijn Smits, Netherlands) — To prove herself to a militant vegan collective led by the fearless Nasha (Emma Josten), activist Mirthe (Caro Derkx) goes undercover at a pig farm, but a night raid on the farmer and his sons escalates into a mutual bloodbath. The nastiest violence at the fest. 8/30 11:20
21. Oddities (Tyler Savage, US) — Savage’s twisty tale of two girls who accidentally kill a sexual assaulter and flee a drugs party with a big bag of coke, before hiding from their pursuers in a backwoods antiques shop run by genre stalwart Adrienne Barbeau. Compelling performances from all involved, as they face threats from outside and in this very watchable thriller with a horror secret at its core. 8/31 10:45
22. Peril at Pincer Point (Noah Stratton Twine & Jake Kuhn, UK) — A deadpan B-movie pastiche in which sound recordist Jim Baitte is drawn into an island mystery of pirates, an ominous prophecy and a great many crabs. It’s like Guy Maddin meets The Mighty Boosh. 8/31 4:00
23. Ponderosa (Rob Rice, US) — A surreal, Lynchian comedy of menace in which teenager Zeke (Jack Dylan Grazer) is pressed to humour a wealthy regular (the great Bill Camp) vehemently set on becoming his father. Rice has a great eye for liminal spaces – deserted parking lots, out of favour chain eateries, and McMansions – and delivers a compelling vision of the parasitic rot of Boomer America. 8/28 3:25
24. Salmokji: Whispering Water (Lee Sang-min, South Korea) — When a ghostly figure surfaces in a reservoir’s street-view mapping, a crew led by Su-in (Kim Hye-yoon) is sent to reshoot the site — a colleague having already vanished there — and the cursed Salmokji, said to sit on a mass grave, begins to call them into its depths. The biggest Korean horror ever, in box office, and one of the better K-horrors of the decade. 8/28 11:00; 8/30 4:00
25. Sanguine (Marion Le Corroller, France) — The festival’s closer, appearing under the English title Species: a darkly humorous body-horror that uses physical mutation to anatomise Gen Z burnout, with effects by The Substance‘s Pierre-Olivier Persin. Sanguine powers along with French comic vim, with bold visuals and an enjoyably goofy take on the traditional Cronenbergian idea of people changing under the pressures of capitalism. 8/31 8:55
26. Snapshot (Joseph Archer, UK) — Archer’s Victorian found-footage debut, shot through a circular pinhole frame, follows the device’s inventor as he joins an all-female ghost-hunting society convinced the 1888 Whitechapel killings are the work of a violent ghost. One of the stranger found footage films you’ll ever see, pushing the format to its limits. 8/31 6:30
27. Spider Island (Christopher Smith, UK) — A group of influencers gather to launch a luxury island resort whose construction has woken a horde of deadly spiders bent on reclaiming it; with Rose Williams and Tim McInnerny. A real beer-and-pizza movie, and a joy for anyone who wants to replace “like and subscribe” with “scream and die!” 8/30 8:50
28. Sweet Violence (Jeremías Segovia, Uruguay) — The feature debut of one of Uruguay’s rising genre voices, showing a long-delayed reckoning of revenge as a group of parents try to hire a hitman to kill the man convicted of murdering their daughters – just as he’s released from prison, still protesting his innocence. Dark, morbid, and melancholy, this slow burn thriller is suffused with an ominous sense of threat that seems to uncurl down every dark alleyway. 8/29 6:10; 8/31 1:05
29. Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-ho, South Korea) — Screening for its tenth anniversary: passengers on the Seoul-to-Busan express, among them Seok-woo (Gong Yoo), fight through a nationwide zombie outbreak. The most propulsive zombie flick in cinematic history. 8/28 8:30; 8/30 1:00
30. You Are The Film (Makoto Ueda, Japan) — Ueda’s metacinematic, fourth-wall-breaking experiment, as two youngsters find that they are each a character in a movie in the other one’s reality. Cue them running into a cinema to leave each other messages through the screen. This playful Japanese curio starts off smartly constructed, like the Ueda-penned Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes or River; it ends up very goofy indeed, as Ueda throws everything at the screen, from yakuza to… well, that would be telling. 8/31 3:30

Tubi FrightFest runs 27–31 August across the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square and Odeon Luxe West End; film tickets, day tickets and full festival passes are on sale now at frightfest.co.uk.