A glimpse at the line-up assembled this year by the Sitges–International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia is enough to realize that we are probably facing one of the best editions in recent years. There will be 252 feature films, 143 short films, and 4 series, spread across 20 sections over the course of 11 days, from October 9 to 19. And among this ocean of films, one name undoubtedly stands out above all the others: Indy. I’ll come back to that, but first it’s worth remembering that the leitmotif of this year’s edition is comedy within horror.
As the central film of this concept, the festival will screen a restored copy of Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon’s masterpiece, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year and won the award for Best Film at the 1985 edition of the festival. An indisputable masterpiece, Re-Animator claims, forty years later, its place in the Olympus of the most transgressive, wild, and excessive films ever produced by the Seventh Art.
There is little left in it of H.P. Lovecraft’s original story—true enough—but its ability to extract something radically different and yet respectful of Lovecraft’s spirit is unquestionable: mutilating and dismembering the master from Providence, and doing it well, is not within everyone’s reach. Proof of this lies in the string of later adaptations that followed in Re-Animator’s wake, all of them unsatisfactory: The Curse (1987), The Unnamable (1988), or Necronomicon (1993) are a few examples. Even Gordon himself returned to Lovecraft twice, also unsuccessfully: in Castle Freak (1995) and in the unbearable Dagon (2001).
Re-Animator celebrates 40 years of un-life.
Re-Animator is a perfect example of what Sitges aims to convey this year with its central theme. It is a film that provokes genuine chills — the sequence of the first corpse’s reanimation remains shocking in its grisly audacity — while at the same time finding, within its own gory essence, moments of dark humor, such as the scene where the severed head of Dr. Carl Hill attempts to guide his decapitated body without tripping over the furniture.
Yet, the festival’s leitmotif is perhaps best crystallized in that unforgettable moment toward the end of the film, when Dr. Hill, to perform cunnilingus on the object of his desire, Megan Halsey, has no choice, given the circumstances, but to grab his own head with his hands and lower it toward the girl’s body. It’s a hilariously grotesque moment that blends horror and absurd humor in equal measure — a scene where the viewer hesitates between looking away in disgust at its Grand Guignol excess or bursting out laughing at its sheer outrageousness.
Of course, that is precisely Re-Animator’s intention: to navigate the fine line between horror and comedy. Gordon knew perfectly well that the only way to walk that path was through excess. A fitting tribute, then, to a film that defined an era — the fantastic cinema of the 1980s cannot be understood without it — and became a model for filmmakers such as Peter Jackson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4-CRkd_74g
Sección Oficial Fantàstic Competició
This year, 34 films will compete for the main awards at Sitges (and there are many more—almost every section has its own prizes). Among them, one title clearly stands out as one of the most anticipated films of the season, a true phenomenon that will, without a doubt, sell out all three scheduled screenings at the festival: Good Boy, the singular proposal by Ben Leonberg, in which the protagonist is a dog — Indy — who must fight against dark forces threatening his home and his owner.
Indy (the dog’s real name, both in life and in fiction) is the absolute star of the film, as he is either present in every shot or the story unfolds entirely from his point of view. The online release of the trailer a few weeks ago sparked such international excitement that searches for the phrase Does the dog die in Good Boy? skyrocketed on Google the very same day.
Indy, incidentally, is Leonberg’s own dog. The director spent three years filming to capture from his loyal companion the performance the screenplay required. The result, judging by early festival reactions, is nothing short of spectacular. Some have even praised Indy’s work as a “great performance,” while many highlight that the film manages to be both terrifying and deeply moving.
The U.S. release of Good Boy is scheduled for October 3, and it will arrive in Spanish theaters on October 17, even before this year’s edition of the Sitges Festival concludes. The anticipation is enormous — a quick scroll through social media is enough to see how deeply people are worried about Indy’s fate in the film (not a single word, by the way, about what might happen to his human owner; all anyone cares about is what becomes of Indy).
So I honestly don’t know what might happen in Sitges if, by the end of the film, Indy dies. If I were part of the festival organization, I’d be arranging extra security for those three screenings — just in case.
Together (Michael Shanks, 2025).
Another of Sitges 2025’s major highlights will be The Life of Chuck, an adaptation of a Stephen King short story directed by Mike Flanagan, which unfolds through three episodes in a man’s life — the titular Chuck — told in reverse chronological order. The film delves into themes of life, death, and human connection, and is expected to deeply move audiences thanks to an emotional performance by Ben Hiddleston.
Together arrives at Sitges backed by its successful run at festivals such as Sundance, South by Southwest, and Locarno. The debut feature by Michael Shanks, it follows a couple who move to the countryside and soon begin to experience the siege of strange supernatural forces that affect their relationship in rather “physical” ways (those who remember Brian Yuzna’s Society will know what to expect). The film also carries an intriguing meta detail that may enrich the viewing experience: the lead couple is played by Dave Franco and Alison Brie, who have been married in real life since 2017.
Also arriving after strong festival screenings is Redux Redux, directed by brothers Kevin and Matthew McManus. Shown at SXSW and Fantasia, among others, the film centers on Irene Kelly, played by Michaela McManus (the director’s sister), a woman who travels through parallel universes, killing her daughter’s murderer over and over again. This escalating cycle of violence pushes Irene to the edge of her own humanity in a story that promises an intriguing and intense take on the now-familiar multiverse theme.
Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude approaches his country’s most famous myth with Dracula.
Another competition title that will undoubtedly make waves is Dracula, by Romanian director Radu Jude, who approaches his homeland’s most iconic myth with irreverence in a film running nearly three hours. Also screening is Exit 8, an adaptation of the popular video game directed by Genki Kawamura, built around the same mantra: if you find no anomaly, keep going; if you find one, turn back immediately.
Meanwhile, We Bury the Dead by Zak Hilditch stands out as one of the strongest contenders for the top awards. It tells the story of Ava (played by Daisy Ridley), who joins a corpse recovery unit after her husband disappears during a military experiment — only to discover that the bodies they’re burying may not be entirely dead.
Sitges Collection Section
Launched last year, the Sitges Collection gathers films that have already screened at other major festivals but that Sitges wishes to highlight. In its previous edition, with titles such as The Substance, the section’s intent was already clear: to showcase films of significant weight — whether for the prestige of their creators or their success on the festival circuit.
This year, some of Sitges’ most dazzling offerings are housed in this section: from Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein to Luc Besson’s Dracula, passing through Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest hallucination Bugonia — once again starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons — and Black Phone 2, the sequel to one of the best horror films of recent years, with director Scott Derrickson and his entire cast returning, including a chilling Ethan Hawke, now turned into a sort of modern Freddy Krueger.
The section also includes films bound to delight Sitges regulars. A clear example is Sisu: Road to Revenge, the sequel to Sisu, again directed by Jalmari Helander. The original film won Best Picture at Sitges 2022, making its return more than justified. Another perfectly fitting addition is The Home, the new and terrifying work by James DeMonaco, creator of The Purge saga.
Finally, Sitges Collection will also feature Carmen Maura as the unsettling lead in Vieja loca, an Argentine-Spanish co-production presented by J.A. Bayona, promising to be one of the section’s most talked-about titles.
There are many more thrilling proposals scattered across the festival’s twenty sections, far too many to cover within the limits of this article. Yet it’s worth noting, before closing, that the list of confirmed guests for this year’s edition of the Sitges Film Festival is every bit as remarkable as its film line-up. It’s been a long time since the festival managed to gather such a dazzling constellation of stars.
Among those expected to attend this year are Benedict Cumberbatch (recipient of the Time Machine Award), Terry Gilliam (honored with the Grand Honorary Award), Daisy Ridley, Barbara Crampton, Nancy Loomis — star of three John Carpenter masterpieces (Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, and The Fog) — Sean S. Cunningham (director of Friday the 13th, who will also receive a Time Machine Award), and Gale Anne Hurd, producer of such iconic films as The Terminator and Tremors (both screening in 4K at Sitges this year).
The guest list continues with Luc Besson, Lloyd Kaufman (the tireless co-founder of Troma alongside Michael Herz), Dominique Pinon (Méliès Award), Jean Dujardin, Joe Dante (Grand Honorary Award), Carmen Maura (also receiving a Grand Honorary Award), and Julia Ducournau, whose film Alpha will open this year’s edition.
All this to celebrate a cult of wickedness that now reaches its 58th edition — 58 years of perversion, death, blood, possessions, cursed houses, haunted trains, serial killers, axes, chainsaws, malevolent aliens, and razor-sharp knives. Long live Sitges!
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