Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the cinema, Australia’s darkest genre film festival returns with a wild and savage bite! Get ready for Volume 2 of the Dark Nights Film Fest, coming to Sydney’s Ritz Cinemas from October 9 to October 12, 2025.
Voted one of Dread Central’s Top Genre Film Festivals on Earth, this year’s festival will host nine features having their Australian Premieres, a vintage bona fide cult classic, and 22 new short films, from Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Denmark, Serbia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia.
“Dark Nights champions immersive cinema,” says festival director Bryn Tilly, “And dark genre filmmaking demands a big screen, a dark room, and an audience being pulled to the edge of their seat, whether it be a full-throttle, blood-soaked shocker or a creeping, unshakeable sense of cosmic or existential dread. Dark Nights Film Fest’s Volume 2 has all the nightmare boxes ticked.”
The Feature Film Lineup for Dark Nights Film Fest 2025
The festival’s Opening Night-mare is Stephen Cognetti’s latest, Hell House LLC: Lineage. This will be its only Australian theatrical screening. Send in the clowns!
From Germany comes Bark, a nail-biting thriller set in a remote forest that sees a desperate city man, tied to a tree, and the mysterious, taunting outdoors man gradually pulling the wicked truth from his captive right up until the shocking end.
For fans of the surreal vibe of David Lynch and the desolate allure of Michelangelo Antonioni comes Joshua Erkman’s twisted and brutal neo-noir, A Desert, following the dangerous plight of a lone photographer into the treacherous heart of America.
Stephen Biro, from Unearthed Films, delivers a fascinating, unfiltered look at the creation and legacy of one of cinema’s most controversial movies of the past fifty years in A Serbian Documentary, likely to be one of the hot buttons of the festival.
The Serbian double-whammy continues with Karmadonna, a savage satire, and the debut feature from Aleksandar Radivojević, the co-screenwriter of A Serbian Film. A blistering, profane thriller that lights all manner of cultural and religious fuses and torches them with ferocity.
The masterpiece of gory hilarity, Peter Jackson’s legendary Braindead, hits the screen in a superb new 4K restoration. Not seen on Australian screens in thirty years, this ingenious display of low-budget filmmaking features the wildest zombie carnage ever committed to celluloid. Miss this at your peril!
Mexican filmmaker Lex Ortega (Atroz) delves deep into nightmarish fears and repulsion with Necromorphosis—narrated by horror queen Gigi Saul Guerrero—that traces the survivalist extremes of an entomologist trapped in the subterranean filth of the city.
In the year’s most original dark genre movie, Sun, a dancer searches desperately for his missing wife through a nocturnal NYC and his own personal hell. Dominic Lahiff’s unique hybrid of sound, movement, and fury bursts from the screen.
Four interconnected tales, from four Danish directors, are adapted from the macabre, ghoulish works of master storyteller Hans Christian Andersen in the superb anthology Adorable Humans.
Closing Night heralds the brilliant debut feature from US filmmaker Todd Wiseman Jr, The School Duel, a harrowing, dystopian thriller that burns hard with the evils of gun culture and a dysfunctional future-is-now society, wielding a powerful central performance from its young star.
But Wait! There’s more!
Ten of the best new Australian short films form the Aussie Shorts Showcase, where the audience can vote for their favorite. Then, there will be 12 international shorts paired with the features, showcasing some of the most thrilling emerging filmmakers from around the world.
The weekend also sees the return of the popular Movie Boutique, where friendly merchants sell rare high art and deep trash Blu-rays, DVDs, VHS, books, magazines, posters, CDs, vinyls, and other collectibles.
And the cherry on top is a casual Filmmakers Discussion Panel, with four local filmmakers, Josh Reed, Hannah Barlow, Jack Dignan, and Jennifer Van Gessel. They’ll discuss the hurdles and rewards of micro-to-low-budget feature filmmaking and offer advice. It’s an essential talk for those ready to leap into filmmaking.
Get your tickets to Dark Nights Film Festival here!
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