Reel Spooky

Spooky Empire Horror Film Festival continues to grow

Exclusive to MeierMovies, October 31, 2025

In its 19th year, Orlando’s Spooky Empire Horror Film Festival continues to expand, with a record number of submissions (nearly 400) and a slate of 121 accepted films (four features and the rest shorts).

An extension of the larger Spooky Empire horror convention, now in its 22nd year, the event will be held October 31 – November 2 at the Hyatt Regency on International Drive.

The fest will feature horror, thriller, suspense, mystery, scary sci-fi and horror-comedy movies, and even spooky documentaries, and almost all the shorts will screen at least twice, offering the roughly 15,000 expected Spooky guests ample time to viddy.

With many shorts blocks, plus filmmaker meet-ups, trivia and other events, in three ballrooms in the Hyatt’s convention center, it is difficult to plan your schedule. If you can pick just one thing to see, however, make it the “RIP Best of the Fest,” on Sunday at 2 p.m., in plaza ballroom F. That screening will contain some of the festival’s best shorts, as selected by the screening committee. Then stick around to discover the judges’ picks at the awards ceremony at 4 p.m.

This is the fourth year that the film festival has been hosted by And You Films, and it takes a crew of 30 to bring the event together. But the heart of the team is the husband-wife duo of Brendan Rogers and Aléa Figueroa, who serve as creative director and festival director, respectively. And true to the spirit of the festival, they began their festival association as participating filmmakers.

“Ever since 2014, when we had Bubba the Redneck Werewolf premiere here, there’s been a special place in our heart for Spooky Empire. After that, every year, we would submit a lot of our parody films, anything that was even remotely horror-bent,” Rogers says. “It was so much fun. The Spooky crowd is so awesome. Horror audiences, I think, are uniquely forgiving of independent-film shortcomings. You’re playing for the perfect audience. It’s a bubble of Spooky horror love all weekend. The fact that it’s a film festival attached to this amazing convention makes it a really unique venue.”

When the previous festival director stepped down after the 2021 fest, he offered the job to Rogers and Figueroa.

“To continue the celebration of horror cinema and to bring what we learned at other festivals and apply it here, making it a unique experience for our film-festival entries, is awesome,” Rogers says. “We love it.”

So what have been the biggest takeaways for Rogers and Figueroa during their four years running the film festival?

“It is so important to be around other creatives, … whether it’s a film festival, whether you’re creating a film, whether you are in a play, whatever the art may be that you’re working on, that you’re creating, it’s so important to surround yourself with creatives,” Figueroa says. “Running the film festival for four years now, I think that’s what filmmakers really gravitate toward.”

For more information on the film festival, visit AndYouFilms.com. For the film festival’s schedule, go here. And for general Spooky Empire news, including info about tickets and celebrity guests, go here.

© 2025 MeierMovies, LLC

 

Festival blog

Friday, October 31

The festival opened with a medium-sized crowd, typical for the first day. The beautiful weather likely lured a lot of potential attendees away from an indoor convention and outside to trick-or-treat in the evening.

Attendance at the film festival was somewhat light but enthusiastic. I screened the Occult block at 1:30 p.m. and the Psychological Horror block at 3 p.m. The highlight of the former group, at least for this critic, was The Last Word, which built nicely from subtle creepiness to full-blown surrealism.

The second block was stronger, with Vowels, L’Autre Moi (The Other Me), Canvas, The:Night:Watcher and Mary’s Mixtape all deserving praise.

(A word of parking advice: Choose the easier, cheaper Pointe Orlando parking instead of the overpriced Hyatt garage. It’s a short walk from the Pointe to the Hyatt.)

Saturday, November 1

As usual, the second day of Spooky was much busier, with large crowds filling the vendor and guest rooms, the tattoo festival and the panel discussions. The film festival was also well attended.

My day started with the Arthouse Horror block at 11 a.m. From that group, let me commend Bene Culturale, especially its art direction, from director Dominik Balkow. Next up for me was the Legends of the Weird & Strange group, at 2 p.m. The two most memorable films from that block were Hooves, a Sri Lankan anti-hunting (partially animated) fable, and Bocuk: An Ancient Ritual, which is that rarest of creatures: the horror documentary.

Following the Nicholas Hoult panel and explorations of the vendor and celebrity rooms, I took in the Dark & Disturbing shorts block, at 8 p.m. From that group, the outstanding entry was Inheritance, by director Anthony Misiano, an unsettling examination of what is passed down from mother to son.

On a technical note, the films look good, projected in high definition. As is often the case at conventions, the sound is a bit muffled, but that’s mostly out of the control of the festival directors. Unfortunately, noise bleed from the adjacent tattoo festival is distracting and, I hope, something that can be addressed next year.

Sunday, November 2

The Florida Fear shorts block began my day at 11 a.m. Though it was the least impressive of the groups I screened it’s an important one because it gives local and regional filmmakers a chance to shine. Predictably, it was the block with the most filmmakers in attendance.

The group everyone was waiting, the “RIP Best of the Fest,” took place at 2 p.m. It featured eight of the fest’s best short films, curated by the selection committee. They were The Parcel, Inheritance, Franken Struck, Hooves, Brick Boy, The Baby, Wrapped in Celluloid and Monster Medicine.

Next up was the awards ceremony, which saw more than a dozen awards handed out, in addition to raffle winners and some appropriately themed spooky entertainment. The biggest prizes went to Veronica Felicity Johnson for “fearmaker of the year” (director), for Monster Medicine; Anthony Misiano for best actor in Inheritance; and Hooves, which claimed the most prestigious award (best short film), plus audience choice.

The award for best feature went to director Trent Duncan for his Axes and Os. The festival prioritizes shorts, so just four features were screened, and only three competed for the top award. However, that means the festival had a feature acceptance rate of only 8 percent, so it was an honor just to be included.

For star ratings of all of the roughly 60 shorts I saw this weekend, visit my lists.

© 2025 MeierMovies, LLC