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!

PORTLAND, OR - We are extremely excited to announce that Author and Screenwriter Chiaki J. Konaka will be our 2018 Guest of Honor! With over 200 screenwriting credits, he is best known in the US for Marebito, "Innsmouth Wo Oou Kage," "Ultraman Gaia," and "Mononoke." He is also well known among fans for putting Lovecraftian and Mythos elements in many of his works. As the screenwriter for the 1989 original video movie Psychic Vision: Jaganrei (which means "Evil Spirit"), Konaka penned one of the first films in the "J Horror" movement, influencing Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Shimizu, and others. His mythos novel Terror Rate, was translated to English in the anthology Inverted Kingdom, edited by Ken Asamatsu. His vampire novella will be translated into English in 2019.

Mr. Konaka will appear at the festival for Q&A and panel discussions throughout the weekend.

This Friday, Can Evrenol's highly anticipated Lovecraftian feature film, HOUSEWIFE shows opening night of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival® in Providence, RI, taking place on College Hill at the beautiful Metcalf Auditorium at RISD Chace Center (20 N Main St, Providence). We're very pleased to bring this amazing film to Lovecraft's hometown. Can Evrenol is the director of BASKIN (2015) which garnered many extreme reviews, and was called one of the bloodiest and one of the weirdest horror films of that year. Reviewers noted its slightly Lovecraftian overtones, but won't be able to miss the influence of the Ol' Gent from Providence in this one... it has everything he would've loved (and a few things he would've hated!): nightmares becoming real, a generational family curse, strange books of forbidden secrets, artists under the sway of cosmic power, a modern day cult, tentacles, and a little blood, nudity, and sex (that's the stuff Howie wasn't too fond of, but you'll love). Don't miss it on opening night!

Also on Friday is a full short film block of amazing new Lovecraftian shorts, followed by two blocks of shorts on Saturday, and the feature films THEY REMAIN, directed by local filmmaker Philip Gelatt (Europa Report), and COLD SKIN, directed by Xavier Gens and featuring a survival story on a desolate island beset by monstrous fish people. Sunday will showcase two more blocks of short films, bringing the total of Lovecraftian short films to 24, from countries as diverse as the US and Canada to the Czech Republic and Spain, with 10 countries represented overall in the madness! The festival will end Sunday afternoon with NECRONOMICON: THE BOOK OF HELL from Argentinian director Marcelo Shapces, which follows the chaos in the wake of the discovery of the fifth copy of the Necronomicon in the bowels of the University of Buenos Aires (as cited by Lovecraft himself, in his "History of the Necronomicon"). Fans of the Cthulhu Mythos should not miss this film, or indeed, the whole festival. Single day tickets and 3-day passes are still available on Eventbrite, and will be available at the door (if they remain).

The Full schedule of films and events is available now on the official Web site. (click here)

Last held at the Providence Public Library, the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival® will take place August 17-19th 2018, at its new digs, smack dab in Lovecraft country, up on College Hill at the beautiful RISD Metcalf Auditorium. With fantastic projection, excellent sound, and a lovely dark auditorium, the Metcalf ups our film festival game, ensuring that you'll be immersed in the cosmic horror of our independent film selection.

We're also expanding from two days of film to three days, bringing even more Weird to the hometown of H. P. Lovecraft. Tickets are available now! Click here to get both full 3-day passes and single day tickets at Eventbrite.