With passes for the 20th edition of the festival going on sale today, we’re unveiling a mammoth slate of programme announcements.
Celebrating a cult classic with an incredible link to Wales, we’ll be screening Michael Mann’s The Keep (1983) at Abertoir 2025. We screened it on 35mm way back in 2009, the third year of the festival, so we can’t wait to see it back on the big screen in 4K!
We’ll also be hosting the UK premiere of the long-awaited A World War II Fairy Tale (Stewart Buck & Stéphane Piter, 2025), a brand new feature length documentary about the troubled making of the film, and will explore its unexpected, local(-ish!) Welsh connection in the featurette Into the Darkness: On-set in Wales (2025). We hope to be joined by select cast and crew to celebrate the film and to look back on this iconic cult classic.
BAFTA-nominated composer Simon Boswell is the maestro behind a slew of beloved horror favourites, scoring films from Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Clive Barker, Danny Boyle and many more. In a grand special event, Simon is bringing his show to Abertoir in an immersive live performance with a powerhouse lineup of musicians. Together, they reimagine his cult soundtracks as explosive performances fusing rock, electronica, and cinematic score. With psychedelic visuals, the result has been described as “Pink Floyd meets the Velvet Underground, conducted by Bernard Herrmann on acid.”
2025 also marks the 40th anniversary of Simon Boswell’s first soundtrack, Dario Argento’s Phenomena (1985), and Abertoir will celebrate with a screening of the film.
In a nod to the past 20 years of the festival, we’re happy to welcome some familiar faces back to Abertoir! Long-time friend of the festival, Victoria Price, will be helping us celebrate this year’s ‘gothic’ theme with a look back at the 20 year period from 1953 to 1973 that defined her father Vincent Price’s career, and delivered some of the best examples of gothic cinema ever made.
Not only that, but we look back to the very first festival where we screened Vincent Price’s wonderful classic Theatre of Blood (Douglas Hickox, 1973). This time, Victoria will be joined by Peter Fuller and John Llewellyn Probert to record a very special live commentary alongside the film!
Back in 2016 we welcomed cult actress Lynn Lowry to the stage, and we’re pleased she’s going to be joining us again, this time to talk about her time on The Crazies (1973). In all our 20 years, we’ve somehow never screened a film by George A Romero, and so we’re finally fixing that!
Among some of the incredible new films we’ll be screening are several UK premieres, including Addison Heimann’s incredible follow-up to Hypochondriac, Touch Me (2025), in which two codependent best friends become addicted to the heroin-like touch of an alien narcissist who may or may not be trying to take over the world.
Another premiere at this year’s festival is Bhargav Saikia’s Bokshi (2025). This is a remarkable folk horror about finding an empowered place in the world, with unique flourishes of shamanism and eco-horror.
This summer, Korean horror film Noise (Kim Su-jin, 2024) smashed the local box office, beating Hollywood blockbusters to become a huge hit. This eerie film will particularly please fans of classic East Asian horror of the 90s, with its unnerving sound design and fantastic set pieces.
Another UK premiere at Abertoir this year is one of two new documentaries from Severin Films, Theatre of Horrors: The Sordid Story of Paris’ Grand Guignol (David Gregory, 2025). Narrated by Barbara Steele, it complements our gothic theme perfectly. The festival will also screen The Degenerate: The Life & Films Of Andy Milligan (Josh Johnson & Grayson Tyler Johnson, 2025), marking two films that delve into the creative roots and influences of some very disreputable horror.
These wonderful films and events join our previously announced UK premiere of The Ghost (Riccardo Freda, 1963), meticulously restored by Severin; and our opening night special event, Garth Marenghi’s This Bursted Earth.
We’ve got much more up our billowing sleeves, so be sure to keep an eye for more announcements soon! And remember – passes are on sale now!