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Those of you who have been following my coverage of the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival over the years, especially those who have read my book, The International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival: The Transition Years will know that I see it as unfolding in sets of three years. We've gone through the Early Years as it figured out what it was, the Indie Years when it went on the road, the Transition Years when it was subsumed by the Phoenix Film Festival to be its genre track and the Pre-Teen Years, when it realised it still had an identity but wasn't quite sure what it was.
2018 is the middle year in a new set of three, firmly under the guidance of festival director Monte Yazzie, and he's made a serious expansion this time out, taking advantage of the longer running time of the Phoenix Film Festival as a whole.
There are 16 showcase features this year. That's not just up from 11 in 2017, it's two higher than the previous high of 14 way back in 2007. Everything else remains stable: three competition features and two sets of shorts for each of horror and sci-fi. That makes 26 slots total, matching 2007's high, when there were six sets of shorts.
As with the previous two years under Monte's guidance, attendees can see every single IHSFFF film, feature or short, and that's much appreciated. What's more, it's easier than it's been, because films are screening more often. Everything in competition is screening three times this year, rather than the usual two, and the showcase features (with three exceptions) are all screening twice. Those exceptions are The Ranger and Summer of 84, along with the first older film to make the cut since 2014, Flash Gordon. This is showing at the end of the second weekend, so will serve as a sort of closing night film for IHSFFF.
One notable difference that's surely out of Monte's control is that there's very little genre material in the wider Phoenix Film Festival and, where there is, it's not really horror/sci-fi.
The crew behind the festival remain the same as last year, starting with Jason Carney and the folk at the Phoenix Film Foundation. Danny Marianino and Brandon Kinchen are in charge of horror competition titles and science fiction writer Mike Stackpole handles the sci-fi competition side. Monte Yazzie is the Festival Director.
Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic
| Horror Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| The Evil Within | 2017 | 6 | 5 | Andrew Getty | IMDb |
| Marla Mae | 2018 | 5 | - | Lisa van Dam-Bates | IMDb |
| Secret Santa | 2018 | 6 | - | Adam Marcus | IMDb |
| Sci-Fi Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Andover | 2018 | 6 | 6 | Scott Perlman | IMDb |
| Chimera | 2018 | 5 | 5 | Maurice Haeems | IMDb |
| Darken | 2017 | 4 | 4 | Audrey Cummings | IMDb |
| Showcase Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| All the Creatures Were Stirring | 2018 | 5 | 5 | Rebekah & David Ian McKendry | IMDb |
| Closer Than We Think | 2017 | 6 | - | Brett Ryan Bonowicz | IMDb |
| Cynthia | 2018 | 5 | 5 | Devon Downs & Kenny Gage | IMDb |
| Director's Cut | 2016 | 5 | 5 | Adam Rifkin | IMDb |
| Downrange | 2017 | 6 | 5 | Ryuhei Kitamura | IMDb |
| Feral | 2017 | 4 | 4 | Mark Young | IMDb |
| Flash Gordon | 1980 | 5 | 5 | Mike Hodges | IMDb |
| The Heretics | 2017 | 5 | 5 | Chad Archibald | IMDb |
| Imitation Girl | 2017 | 4 | 3 | Natasha Kermani | IMDb |
| Lowlife | 2017 | 6 | 5 | Ryan Prows | IMDb |
| The Ranger | 2018 | 4 | 4 | Jenn Wexler | IMDb |
| Revenge | 2017 | 5 | 5 | Coralie Fargeat | IMDb |
| Rock Steady Row | 2018 | 5 | 5 | Trevor Stevens | IMDb |
| Summer of 84 | 2018 | 6 | 5 | François Simard & Anouk & Yoann-Karl Whissell | IMDb |
| To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story | 2017 | 5 | 5 | Derek Dennis Herbert | IMDb |
| Wildling | 2018 | 5 | 5 | Fritz Böhm | IMDb |
| Horror Shorts A | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Love Cuts Deep | 2016 | 6 | 5 | Veronica Shea | IMDb |
| Fisher Cove | 2017 | 5 | 5 | Sean Skene | IMDb |
| It Began without Warning | 2017 | 4 | 4 | Jessica Curtright & Santiago C. Tapia | IMDb |
| The Night Delivery | 2017 | 4 | 4 | Scott O’Hara | IMDb |
| The Dollmaker | 2017 | 6 | 6 | Al Lougher | IMDb |
| Avulsion | 2017 | 6 | 6 | Steven Boyle | IMDb |
| Something in the Darkness | 2017 | 5 | 4 | Fran Casanova | IMDb |
| Rigor Mortis | 2017 | 5 | 5 | Matthew E. Robinson | IMDb |
| Horror Shorts B | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Alfred J. Hemlock | 2017 | Edward Lyons | IMDb | ||
| Hope | 2017 | 6 | 6 | Adam Losurdo | IMDb |
| En Passant | 2015 | 4 | 4 | Barron Hilton | IMDb |
| What Metal Girls are Into | 2017 | 5 | 5 | Laurel Vail | IMDb |
| The Day Mum Became a Monster | 2018 | 5 | 5 | Joséphine Hopkins | IMDb |
| Grin | 2017 | 5 | 5 | Tanuj Chopra | IMDb |
| Sci-Fi Shorts A | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Invasion | 5 | - | Vesa Manninen | n/a | |
| Isabella | 2017 | 5 | - | Qihong Wei | IMDb |
| Metta Via | 2017 | 5 | - | Warren Flanagan | IMDb |
| Echo and Solomon | 2017 | 4 | - | Jem Garrard | IMDb |
| The Apocalypse Will Be Automated | 2017 | 6 | - | Melanie Killingsworth | IMDb |
| Visage | 2017 | 6 | - | Jackson Tobiska & Blake Hodges | IMDb |
| Bullies | 2018 | 6 | - | Daniel Bydlowski | IMDb |
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