The Starlight Hotel. Courtesy of Haunted Garage Horror Festival
Growing up, St. Louis producer and filmmaker Franki Cambeletta spent every New Year’s Eve watching The Twilight Zone with his mom. The tradition sparked an early love of horror that has stuck with Cambeletta ever since—and inspired him to create his own movies through his film company, Shift Films.
“I wanted to start engaging people with true crime, the paranormal, documentary, thrillers. That’s my wheelhouse,” Cambeletta says.
Last year, Cambeletta and his business partners at Shift noticed that although St. Louis had “the best [staged] haunted houses and real haunted houses,” there was no event tailored specifically for horror film enthusiasts. This observation inspired them to found the Haunted Garage Horror Festival, a multi-day affair for fans of the genre to gather and learn from creators. The festival is returning this year from October 7 to October 9 at the Westport Playhouse, and it promises to deliver non-stop scares.
The event will open with a horror-themed cocktail hour featuring the festival’s three guest speakers: Brian Hillard, Matt Neal, and Jeff Bassetti. Hillard, a two-time Emmy award winner for his practical effects in The Walking Dead and Star Trek: Discovery, is slated to host a workshop on SFX best practices. Guests can also attend talks with directors Neal and Bassetti, who will discuss the creation of their movies Fresh Hell and F-Stops, respectively.
Between speaker events, the fest will screen 18 horror shorts—chosen from an original pool of 200 applicants—as well as four full-length films. Titles include a micro short called Cancerslug, a 15-minute piece directed by students at Missouri State University, and Chest, a found footage-style movie. To Cambeletta, the three-day fest represents an opportunity for local and national talent to build lasting connections.
“The real hope of this festival is to bring filmmakers together to write and edit and [collaborate]—to build St. Louis into one of the horror film capitals of America,” Cambeletta says. “I know that seems grandiose, but I do believe we have that potential.”
Tickets for the Haunted Garage Horror Festival are on sale now. A portion of the event’s proceeds will go to the Heroic Hearts Project, an organization that offers "a proprietary program to veterans who are interested in pursuing psychedelic treatment options."
