13 Films To See At FrightFest 2014

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

The Plot: A cauldron of colourful stories that intersect as Dwight McCarthy (Josh Brolin) is drawn into the machinations of one Ava Lord (Eva Green), a femme with more than a hint of fatale.

Meanwhile, there's the return of Marv (Mickey Rourke) and Nancy (Jessica Alba), and new gambler on the block Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

Why It's A Must-See: It's been a long time coming, but the sequel to everybody's favourite mostly-black-and-white comic-book adap is finally here.

Basically, there's nothing else out there quite like it, and with almost a decade having passed since the first film, we can't wait to see how far the technology has come on since then. Plus, MICKEY ROURKE!

Zombeavers

The Plot: When a group of college kids head out to a riverside cabin for a little R&R, their plans for sunny good-times are quickly ruined by the appearance of mutated beavers with a taste for human flesh.

Why It's A Must-See: In a world where things like Sharktopus and Sharknado exist, Zombeavers looks like a perfect companion piece – not least because it seems to be aware of how ridiculous it is, and wholeheartedly embraces that ridiculousness with hilarious/bloody results.

Jury's out on just how many beaver puns they'll manage to cram in there. We're thinking lots...

The Green Inferno

The Plot: A group of activists fly to a remote part of the Peruvian jungle, only to discover that the locals are, shall we say, a little bit strange. Think ' Cannibal Holocaust ' strange...

Why It's A Must-See: With news that the film's UK release has been postponed , this is your chance to catch the film before anybody else.

And you'll definitely want to check it out, mostly because it's Eli Roth's first time directing a horror movie since 2007's Hostel: Part II . Yep, it's been a while since he directed, and it's also been a while since we had a really good cannibal movie. Two for one? Thanks very much.

Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead

The Plot: Martin (Vegar Hoel), the sole survivor of the first Dead Snow , wakes up in hospital and discovers he's under arrest for the murder of his friends. Not only that, but a bungled operation has left him with Nazi zombie Herzog's arm grafted to his body...

Why It's A Must-See: Tommy Wirkola's original was a gory blast that kept its rotting tongue planted firmly in bloody cheek.

We're hoping for more of the same with this batshit-sounding sequel, which seems to have taken a leaf out of The Evil Dead 's playbook.

Shockwave Darkside 3D

The Plot: A sci-fi horror in which Earth has become uninhabitable thanks to a nano-plague infecting the planet's water. Five soldiers fight their way to the darkside of the moon, which has become home to Earth's survivors, before battling it out for the rock's dwindling supplies.

Why It's A Must-See: Last year's Banshee Chapter was one of the festival's biggest surprises, and Shockwave Darkside comes from the producers behind that genuinely creepy (and funny) spin on found footage horror.

Also, it's described as a 'space shocker with gravity', which is just too brilliant for words.

All Cheerleaders Die

The Plot: Non-conformist Maddy (Caitlin Stasey) joins her high school cheerleader team in order to take them down from the inside, but after a terrible accident, she finds herself siding with the cheerleaders against an even more nefarious foe.

Why It's A Must-See: It sounds absolutely mental in the best way possible.

Those lucky people who've already seen the film have lauded it for its ability to completely defy expectations, starting out looking like a simple revenge flick before transforming into something far barmier and bawdier. We can't wait.

Life After Beth

The Plot: Zach (Dane DeHaan) is bereft when his girlfriend Beth (Aubrey Plaza) is killed by a snake bite during a hike. Except then Beth returns from the grave, and Zach is faced with a terrible dilemma – can he really start dating his undead girlfriend?

Why It's A Must-See: It's Aubrey Plaza as a zombie! A hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Life After Beth looks like the best zom-romcom since Shaun Of The Dead.

With its to-die-for cast (Plaza, DeHaan, Molly Shannon, John C. Reilly), this is one of the fest's starriest releases. We can just tell we're going to eat it up.

The Babadook

The Plot: Single mother Amelia (Essie Davis) is still mourning the death of her husband six years ago when her young son Samuel (Noah Wieseman) begins having nightmares about a monster that coincides with the appearance of a strange storybook called Mister Babadook.

Why It's A Must-See: Every year, a film arrives at FrightFest that garners huge buzz. This year, that film is The Babadook.

Surfing in on some serious festival accolades, it's being touted as one of the year's scariest – and if the nightmarish trailer's anything to go by, we believe the buzz. We'll be taking a spare pair of undies to this one...

The Samurai

The Plot: When German police officer Jakob (Michel Diercks) discovers a strange man in the woods who is determined to kill the inhabitants of a local village, it's up to Jakob to find out the root of the man's madness before it's too late.

Why It's A Must-See: While the word 'samurai' doesn't exactly scream 'horror must-see', the film's plot definitely has us thinking otherwise, particularly as it's been described as a spiritual sister to Brian De Palma's Dressed To Kill.

Similarly described by those in the know as a nutty, subversive example of queer cinema, this should be bloody and weird. And German.

Home

The Plot: A demonic horror with a twist, Home follows real estate agent Leigh (Catalina Sandino Moreno), who inspects a new home in her portfolio, unaware that she's walking right into a waking nightmare. Unbeknownst to her, the house was once owned by devil worshippers who turned the residence into a Satanic hotspot...

Why It's A Must-See: Director Nicholas McCarthy was responsible for genuinely creepy ghost flick The Pact, while producer Sonny Mallhi produced The Strangers , so Home has serious name-power going for it.

If it's anywhere near as spooky as The Pact , we're in for a fun ride.

V/H/S: Viral

The Plot: Five more terrifying tales unravel in this third horror anthology. This time, a group of fame-hungry teens become unwitting internet stars. Information about the shorts remains under lock and key, but you can bet they'll be variously terrifying, inventive and weird.

Why It's A Must-See: The word 'VHS' has become synonymous with fear thanks to the first two V/H/S movies.

The series has been a FrightFest mainstay for the past couple of years and, frankly, the festival would feel weird without it. So we can't wait to sit back and let five more tales creep us the heck out.

Nymph

The Plot: College buddies Kelly (Kristina Klebe) and Lucy (Natalie Burn) visit an abandoned Nazi concentration camp on a remote island, which turns out to be the home of a fang-toothed mermaid. Move over Disney, there's a new siren in town...

Why It's A Must-See: If this flick didn't have you at 'fang-toothed mermaid', perhaps we weren't clear enough. THERE'S A KILLER MERMAID IN IT.

Nymph belongs to a horror sub-genre that's been in the deep freeze for too long – the last killer mermaid flick we remember was gory B-movie She-Creature. Nymph looks equally as terrifying – and seductive. Bring it.

Alleluia

The Plot: After fleeing her jealous husband, mother-of-two Gloria (Lola Dueñas) meets Michel (Laurent Lucas) through a dating website. Problem: he's a gigolo who tricks lonely widows out of their money. When Gloria discovers Michel's secret, she helps him propagate the lies until her own sanity begins to crumble...

Why It's A Must-See: Those lucky enough to see the film when it debuted at Cannes raved about the Alleliua 's near-unbearable tension, while lauding it as a clever update of 1969 cult flick The Honeymoon Killers.

Not only that, but the pairing of Lucas with Dueñas sounds like one of the greatest horror double acts in the history of the world.