By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the team behind London’s Arrow FrightFest have postponed their August event and made new plans for this year, with the announcement accompanied by a striking piece of art.
Rather than hold their festival of horror fare during its usual late-summer bank holiday window, FrightFest organizers will expand their traditional all-day Halloween event; details on dates, venues and films will be disclosed soon. “Sadly, we won’t be able to come together and celebrate our 21st year in the summer,” says FrightFest co-director Alan Jones, “but rest assured, we will make our London Halloween event one to remember. FrightFest has always been about the genre community joining together, not just to embrace films but to demonstrate our unique spirit of supportive closeness.”
The COVID-19 outbreak inspired the great UK artist Graham Humphreys (the subject of a RUE MORGUE cover story earlier this year) to come up with this year’s Monster art for the festival. “The image presented a huge challenge,” he says. “Not only had the pandemic erased any hope of a regular FrightFest schedule, but the possibility of a Halloween event needed to be addressed. This year’s monster needed to consider his COVID-19 response with a mask and goggles. The poster for HALLOWEEN II inspired a way to present the full face without risking infection! Is the bat his friendly familiar–or the bringer of pestilence? You decide!”
