Submissions are open for the 2020 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival through FilmFreeway. Save on festival submission fees by submitting early! The earlier you submit, the greater chance you will have of being selected for any satellite events we host, including potential HPLFF screenings at our 3rd Biennial HPLFF in Providence, RI, August 21-23, 2020 (Lovecraft's Birthday weekend!)
All deadlines, requirements, and fees are shown on our FilmFreeway page. Submit early, submit often!
Congratulations to all the 2019 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival Award Winners! With over 45 short and feature films, we had more films than ever eligible for awards. Choosing the winning films was extremely difficult, and all the filmmakers whose films were accepted this year should be extremely proud.
Categories and winning films are:
Best Feature: Color Out of Space by Richard Stanley
Best Short Film: "Red Moon" by Thomas Chrétien
Best Adaptation: "The Last Incantation" by Woodruff Laputka
Best Screenplay: "Flypaper" by Brian Hauser
Audience Choice: Color Out of Space by Richard Stanley
*Lovecraft Under the Gun: "Secluse" by team Monsieur Soeur
**Pickman's Apprentice: "Romantic Shoggoth" sculpture by Monstark
Spiritus Nostrae: presented to Vincent Price
*Lovecraft Under the Gun is a 72 hour film competition. Teams have 3 days to make a short film from scratch, using a line of dialogue and a prop that are revealed when they register. The audience chooses the winner based on technical merit, creativity, and how well they used the prop and line of dialogue.
**Pickman's Apprentice is a live art competition. This year's challenge was to create an original sculpture in 2 hours based on a Lovecraftian monster and mood. The finished works are sold by silent auction. The proceeds are being donated to relief efforts after the devastation of Hurricane Dorian.
We are over the moon-thrilled to announce that Roger Corman, cinematic luminary and all around movie making legend, will be a special guest at the 24th Annual H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival™ this October 4-6. He will be joining Guest of Honor Victoria Price on stage for a rare 35mm screening of The Haunted Palace, based on Lovecraft’s story “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.”
Well known for his work with American International Pictures, and as the head of New Horizon Pictures, Corman has written, directed, and produced hundreds of films spanning 7 decades. In the 60s and 70s, he adapted eight Edgar Allan Poe stories to the screen, many of them starring Vincent Price. Corman made this adaptation of a Lovecraft story as a break from the Poe films, but AIP wasn’t taking any chances, gave the film a Poe title, and marketed it as one of the series.
Hot off the tail of its World Premiere in Toronto, The H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR (Oct 4-6) will host the regional premiere of visionary director Richard Stanley’s long-awaited The Color Out of Space, based on the H. P. Lovecraft story, and starring Nicolas Cage (Mandy, Raising Arizona) and Joely Richardson as the Gardner family, who must deal with the horrors visited on their home and family by the arrival of a meteorite with destructive properties.
Richard Stanley is attending the event to make this a truly special premiere with extensive Q&A and other programming revolving around the film, which is sure to be this decade’s biggest Lovecraft movie! Deluxe and VIP ticket packages are available now, until September 8th in our 2019 Kickstarter campaign. Get yours now!
Vincent Price has long been a beloved actor in the horror genre, and starred in several very Lovecraftian films, including Roger Corman's The Haunted Palace (based on HPL's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward), Diary of a Madman (based on Guy De Maupassant's "The Horla"), and even portrayed the sorcerer John Carnby in Night Gallery's adaptation of Clark Ashton Smith's "The Return of The Sorcerer." This year, we welcome his daughter Victoria Price as our guest of honor. Victoria is an award-winning author and speaker in her own right; in additon to penning The Way of Being Lost: A Road Trip to My Truest Self and Vincent Price: A Daughter's Biography, she is also an acclaimed inspirational speaker and interfaith minister. She'll be joining us to speak about growing up with the legendary Vincent Price, as we feature some of his more Lovecraftian cinematic works.
The reading is done. The winners are chosen. The stories are on their way to press. Congratulations to the winners of the 2019 Lovecraftian Micro Fiction contest!
Each of these super-short, super-creepy stories will be printed in Volume 5 of the Lovecraftian Micro Fiction collection, as the flip side to the Challenge From Beyond 2019. The author of each story will receive two copies of the finished book in the mail, and the top story will be read by one of our noted guests for an adoring (and pretty Weird) audience at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, taking place October 4-6, 2019 at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, OR.
And the winners are (in no particular order):
- TOP WINNER! "Dol-Hareubang" by J. Wiltz
- "Gateway Drug" by Jason Zuleger
- "The Herd" by Russell Smeaton
- "Mother" by Kyle Webb
- "Check Your Pockets" by Michael Carlyle
- "Domovoi" by Erik Gorka
- "Etching of The Masks" by Zachary Bishop
- "White" by Susan Hill
- "That Scar We Made" by Kerry Birmingham
- "Latex" by Sean Blau
For a round 13 stories, we also select 3 Honorable Mentions, which will also be printed in the book, including:
- "Chaos Crawls Back" by Rick Hutchins
- "He, Alone..." by David Gonzalez
- "When the Stars Were Right" by Joe Broers
Competition was fierce and this year's submissions were some of the most clever, impacting, and Weird stories we've ever read, short or not. There were so many standout stories that making these selections was nearly impossible, and if we could have made a double-sized issue, we would have! But, narrowing it down and making those hard choices is a commitment we make to both the authors and the readers. Every one of these authors can be extremely proud of this accomplishment. It was not an easy choice, but you earned it. H. P. Lovecraft himself would be proud of these tiny feats of horror!
The Lovecraftian Micro Fiction collection Vol. 5 was included at several reward levels in the 2019 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival Kickstarter, and will be available as an add-on to Kickstarter backers, as well as at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, October 4-6th, with Guest of Honor Victoria Price, Roger Corman, and Richard Stanley.
The NecronomiCon Providence film schedule and core programming schedules have been announced! Check out the great cosmic horror films they're showing, and pay special attention the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival® short film presentations. Each of the three short film block will have its main screening at the swanky RISD Metcalf auditorium (where last year's HPLFF Providence took place) in Chace Center at 20 N. Main St., featuring excellent projection and sound, plus live Q&A sessions with visiting filmmakers. If you can't make those, there will also be auxiliary screenings at the AS220 Black Box theater downtown at 95 Empire St., so that you don't miss a minute of these amazing films!
We'll also be presenting a 1-night-only "Lovecraft After Dark" block, an adults-only Midnight movie presentation of R-rated short films to titillate and horrify (Midnight, Fri Aug 23rd at AS220 Black Box theater).
Also, check out the full NecronomiCon film schedule, as well as their core programming schedule, then buy tickets to this amazing Lovecraftian event that brings together the best of the Weird in Lovecraft's hometown. We'll see you there!
For you early birds who are planning your travel for the 2019 festival, we have a discounted group rate at the DoubleTree by Hilton near Lloyd Center. Rates are $155/night+tax for a single bed and start at $165/night+tax for two beds. CLICK HERE To book your room!
If you're looking for accommodations closer to the theater, check out our Travel & Venues section!
Congratulations to all the 2018 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival Award Winners! With so many amazing films, choosing the winners was a difficult process
Categories and winning films are:
Best Feature: Hammer of the Gods by Nick Szostakiwskyj & Cameron Tremblay
Best Short Film: "Young Liars" by Adam Christy
Best Adaptation: "The House of the Seven Gables" by Ben Wickey
Best Screenplay: "You and Me and Dagon Makes Three" by Mack W. Mani
Audience Choice: "The Music of John Low" by Marko Kattilakoski
*Lovecraft Under the Gun: "Bestill the Fabric" by team Amor Artisanant
**Pickman's Apprentice: "Zoogs in a Tiki Bar" by Lee Moyer
*Lovecraft Under the Gun is a 72 hour film competition. Teams have 3 days to make a short film from scratch, using a line of dialogue and a prop that are revealed when they register. The audience chooses the winner based on technical merit, creativity, and how well they used the prop and line of dialogue.
**Pickman's Apprentive is a live drawing competition. Artists have 90 minutes to create an original piece based on a Lovecraftian monster, location, and action. The finished works are sold by silent auction. The proceeds are being donated to relief efforts after the devastation of Hurricane Florence.
This year's Screenplay competition has been narrowed down to four finalists by our illustrious jury (Ross E. Lockhart, Dominique Lamssies, Susan O'Neill, Gwen Callahan). The winner will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on Sunday night at 7 pm! We can not post screenplays, but here are the synopses of the four contenders:
Feature screenplay - "Lovecraft: Into the Abyss" by Mark Sudano
When one of his stories is found at a gruesome crime scene, a young HP Lovecraft must team up with Harry Houdini to clear his name, but as they investigate, it becomes clear that Lovecraft's inter-dimensional horrors exist in real life - and the reanimated corpse of Edgar Allan Poe is using them to find the Necronomicon to end life as we know it.
Feature screenplay -"Three Men Dwell" by Bill Bradshaw
It is the year of our Lord 1900. In the storm of the century, a team of Lighthouse keepers are stranded on a barren island off the North West coast of Scotland. The storm brings carnage and destruction but it also harbors something far more sinister. As the days edge by, the team becomes aware of a centuries old evil that threatens, not just the island, but their very existence. "Three Men Dwell" is 'A Perfect Storm' meets 'The Wicker Man' to the bleak backdrop of the North Atlantic.
Short screenplay - "You and Me and Dagon Makes Three" by Mack Mani
Sometimes meeting the parents is about more than making a good impression, for Joe it means traveling to an isolated island and opening himself up to a whole lot of cosmic baggage. It turns out that finding the man of your dreams is the easy part, meeting his parents and their ancient god...that's another issue entirely. Pass the ritual. Survive the night. Plan the wedding. "You and Me and Dagon Makes Three" is a gay horror/rom-com about what it takes to love someone despite their cosmic flaws and the sometimes horrifying lengths we go to to prove that love.
Short screenplay - "Wet Rot" by Stuart Creque
Kit wonders why Dad is spending so much time in the basement, cleaning up the mildew growing there. "Wet Rot" is a short, but effective creep out, and has a nice take on Lovecraftian themes without ever referencing the mythos.
Congratulations to the finalists, and good luck!