Little Horrors Film Festival Report

I recently had the honour and privilege of organising my first ever film festival at Campbeltown Picture House; The ‘Little Horrors Film Festival’. Upon screening Ghostbusters: Afterlife, we had a surge of young children informing staff how much they loved the “horror film” they had just watched. I’ve always had an interest in the programming side of working in a cinema, so I simply could not pass up this opportunity. I pitched the idea of curating and presenting a ‘horrors-for-kids’ festival to my general manager (Ellen Mainwood), who was ecstatic about the idea. My manager and I then sought out funding to support this project, which we were lucky enough to secure from Film Hub Scotland.

Upon doing so, we decided to host a poster competition, which entailed children entering with their posters to promote the festival. We were more than pleased with the amount and quality of the entries we received! The lucky winner was Zak Watt, aged nine. Zak’s poster design [seen in the image above] was implemented on promotional flyers and posters, which me and my sixteen year old brother, Fraser, produced using desktop software. The next job to be done was of course choosing the films to be shown…

The selection process was an interesting stage of organising this film festival, as I had to factor in many things such as BBFC certificates, film popularity and predicting how many people would see a film to make it financially viable. And then of course I was overwhelmed with all the potential films I could show. I was like a kid in a candy shop!

However, once I eventually managed to narrow my choices down I collaborated with our programmer Raymah at Indy to find out which films were available. These films were shown on a weekly basis, and the programme went a little something like this:

Paranorman was the film that kickstarted the festival. This felt very appropriate as it is the epitome of children’s horror: Burton perfectly blends childlike wonder and humour with surprisingly mature — and eerie in execution — themes. The exact type of film I wished to present. The activity that accompanied this screening was myself plastered in zombie make-up, welcoming the audience into the screen. We also asked Jim Parkyn from Aardman to produce a plasticine-zombie-making-tutorial, which was then uploaded to our Facebook page. This saw myself organising plasticine into little baggies for kids to come and collect from the cinema, so they could then follow the video at home and create their little monsters.

The following film that was screened was The Woman in Black, which I was most surprised to see only held a 12A certificate considering how mature and rather scary it is. This film was mainly aimed at our teenage audience. The Woman in Black screening was most definitely our most talked about event — due to our chosen activity for this screening.

Throughout this screening staff carried out multiple scary shenanigans: flickering lights, spooky shadows projected against our Art Nouveau houses that sit grandly at the sides of the screen, and my manager haunting the auditorium as the titular ghoul. There were a few startled faces that night!

The next week saw a screening of Wallace & Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which was received fantastically well. This film felt only right to screen as it is a great British stop motion motion comedy that incorporates some fantastic horror techniques (POV shots, suspenseful scenes etc). As well as this, showing this film allowed me to introduce a younger audience to a gorgeous animation style, which felt very fulfilling! For our “something extra” for this film we handed out W&G themed snack boxes and brownies decorated with fondant carrot tops (this went down very well with the kids).

The following week was a screening of Super 8, which again is a mature film but uses it’s filmic techniques to keep both young and adult audiences engaged. It’s a film with both amazing cinematography and sound design that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible. This was 100% my favourite activity we organised. Before the entrance to the screen, I set up a table showcasing a 16mm projector, a reel of 35mm sitting prepared in a splicer, and some projector carbon rods and lenses.

I took great pride introducing these instruments to a younger demographic and explaining the integral parts these items played when celluloid projection was king.

The final Little Horrors Film Festival was none other than a screening of Coraline, which tied in nicely with its 15th Anniversary. Similarly to W&G, this film allowed me to introduce a young audience to a different style of animation than they’d maybe been used to. Coraline felt like the best way to conclude the festival as it plays around with and explores childlike dreamscapes and imaginations and incorporates very eerie themes and plot points throughout. The final activity that accompanied Coraline was a fun activity sheet that myself and my brother produced, consisting of Coraline themed word searches, mazes and spot-the-differences.

There was a sadness accompanying the finale of my film festival, as the five weeks just seemed to just fly by. However, all good things must come to an end and I learned so much about an area I am eager to continue to develop my skill set in. I’d like to give a big thanks to the amazing team I work with for the support they gave me with this project and of course everyone that came along! With this being said, I am currently in the preparation stages for organising a day of horror films for all ages for this coming October and can’t wait to get stuck in yet again!