The second day of Nightmares Film Festival 2025 (aka NFF X) roared to life during the late afternoon at Columbus, Ohio with the midwest premiere of Ritesh Gupta’s meta slasher movie, The Red Mask. A topical stab at the ever-raging war between creatives and horror fans over the souls of popular franchises, it’s a biting bit of satire that can cut pretty deep at times in its criticism of both groups. And if that’s not enough of an enticement to keep an eye out for its eventual release, it also has Supernatural‘s Jake Abel as one of its leads!
The twin screening during the first block of programming for the day was “Recurring Nighmares A”. While most of the other shorts blocks that play at Nightmares every year are themed in terms of genre (or subgenre), the Recurring Nightmares ones are especially unique. Every short film that plays in these blocks comes from a filmmaker who has previously had work showcased at Nightmares. An alumni block, if you will, and one that can spand all genre showcased by the festival (i.e. horror, thriller, midnight, horror comedy, etc.).
I usually try my best to skew more heavily towards the shorts blocks than the features in my viewings. After all, the features will all eventually see wide release in some form, whereas the shorts have a more difficult road to getting in front of all eyes. This year, however, I have my teenage son tagging along. It’s his first time at not on Nightmares Film Festival, but at a film festival in general. While he has enjoyed the short blocks we’ve seen thus far, his tastes skew more towards features, so that’s the focus for me at NFF X.
On that note, the second wave of programming for the day delivered a horror shorts block on one screen and the journalism-themed anthology horror flick If It Bleeds on the other. We opted for the latter and were not disappointed. It’s handsomely made film with a great cast, dishing out fun turns by familiar faces like Catherine Corcoran, Krsy Fox, Doug Jones, a southern-accented Dee Wallace, and the devilish vocal talents of John Kassir. The hook is a unique one, focusing on a small news team as the cover various weird murders in the course of a single day, some of which involve the supernatural.
The third round of cinematic choices for the evening were between a block of thriller shorts and a grassroots horror feature calld Blood Barn. We ultimately opted for a third option: seeking out sustenance. As much as I’d like to do nothing but feed my eyeballs with horror all day long, one has to eat at some point and the stomach finally won out. That said? Chatter about both selections was very high. Attendees and filmmakers that I spoke to heavily enjoyed the mini-thrillers in “Thriller Shorts A”. Those who saw Blood Barn instead praised its raw indie spirit, wild cinematopgraphy, and overall unique vibe.
The night closed out with showings of the John Waters-esque (and playfully titled) The Cramps: A Period Piece and another block of horror shorts. The former seemed to be a hit with attendees as well. We went with the latter. The NFFX shorts programming remains as top-tier as ever and “Horror Shorts C” impressed across the board. Our two favorites being The Sequence and Don’t Be Afraid. The latter managed to make this James Bond fan smile, as it starred No Time to Die‘s David Dencik. My fellow horror fanatics will recognize him more as the lead in Ghost’s video for “Satanized“, of course!
Day Three of NFFX is primed to be one for the books, with another heaping horde of short films, the awards ceremony, a special interactive premiere for Jason Trost’s chose-your-own-adventure gem Afar, and screenings of another slate of can’t-miss films like Pig Hill, Landlord, We Put the World to Sleep, and more! Above all else, it will be another wonderful day of hanging out with fellow horror fans of all types, coming together to watch a bunch of movies and have a ton of awesome conversations. NFFX is—at least for this writer—the horror hangout of the year and I feel privileged to be a small part of it.
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