Zombies, vampires and lots of blood at Spooky film fest

WASHINGTON — When the ghosts, vampires and zombies come out to play, do you run away or rush to the nearest theater?

If you fall into the latter category, then don’t miss the Spooky Movie International Horror Festival, running through Oct. 18 at AFI Silver Spring, Maryland.

The ninth annual fright fest is the region’s only event of its kind, which surprises founder and program director Curtis Prather.

“There is something very special about watching [these movies] with an audience,” he says. “It goes back to the days of people telling ghost stories around the fire.”

It’s this kind of community that makes horror so attractive to fans throughout the world: “It’s the same thing with roller coasters,” Prather says. “I love the feeling of being scared while at the same time being safe. There is an element of the unknown.”

Prather founded the Spooky film fest in 2006 after noticing a lack of horror viewing options in the region. Even as a child, he was attracted to the weird and unnatural in storytelling, and counts some Disney films among his first scary loves.

Consider the scene in “Pinocchio” where children turn into donkeys. Or Gene Wilder’s performance in “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.”

“I really liked to be freaked out, but I also couldn’t wait to watch [the movies] again,” Prather says.

These days, horror seems to be following a few different trends. The demand for zombies was resurrected with popular movies such as “Zombieland” and “Shaun of the Dead” after experiencing a renaissance in the 1980s:

“They do well during times of anxiety,” Prather suggests.

“[In the ’80s] the Cold War was ending, and then in the ’90s you didn’t see a lot of zombies. But when 9/11 happened, you really started to see a lot of these end-of-world movies.”

Those have slowly morphed into horror-comedies thanks to “Shaun of the Dead” mastermind Simon Peg. New movies such as “Suburban Gothic” — starring Matthew Gray Gubler, of “Criminal Minds,” as an eccentric 30-something who returns to his parents’ haunted home — take the horror genre and douse it with slapstick humor.

“These movies are almost like an adult ‘Scooby Doo,'” Prather says. “There are a lot of dirty words.”

Click through the gallery to see more top picks from this year’s Spooky movie festival. And click here to see the complete schedule and ticket information.

Follow @WTOP and WTOP Entertainment on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook.

Federal News Network Logo
Log in to your WTOP account for notifications and alerts customized for you.

Sign up