Awards Radar Community / Sunday Scaries: Which Film Festival Debuts the Best Horror Movies?

The Sunday Scaries are upon us once again! Yes, as the weekend concludes, most of us feel an oncoming sense of anticipatory dread about the week ahead. Anxiety about work manifests itself into a feeling that’s known as the Sunday Scaries. However, we at Awards Radar are here to combat that, by taking back the name. Now, we want you think about a horror-centric piece on the site when you hear the term. So, let us continue on with another installment of the Awards Radar Sunday Scaries! Today, with the fall film festivals coming upon us, it’s a hybrid of this series and the Awards Radar Community Question. Read on for more…

Somehow, in ten days I depart for the Telluride Film Festival. Once I return from there, I’ll be almost immediately heading to the Toronto International Film Festival. So, I have festivals on the brain, as you might imagine. That anticipation of no sleep, quality movies, etc, had me looking to make a horror connection. Ultimately, it became a very specific Awards Radar Community Question. The query? Which festival are your favorites for horror?

I feel like the most popular answers are going to be the Sundance Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. These fests really do get the cream of the crop, both independent and sometimes even mainstream. TIFF features them in their Midnight Madness section, with disparate works like Pearl, Tusk, and X, to name a few. As for Sundance, it’s the indie lot, but quite often the absolute best works. Look at this list I did here, but it includes The Blair Witch Project, Get Out, and Saw. That covers so much horror ground, doesn’t it?

At the same time, don’t sleep on the Cannes Film Festival. I detailed some of the best horror offerings from Cannes here, but it’s a solid list. They often have classier works, like It Follows or Titane, but they really do feature all sorts of fright flicks. As a bonus, their international offerings are always a cut above, no pun intended.

The choice is now yours. Which festivals are your go-to’s for horror debuts? Is it one we mentioned? Perhaps it’s another, like the New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, or Venice Film Festival? Whichever it is, we want to know all about it…

Which film festival debuts the best horror movies? Let us know!