The Overlook Film Festival was one of our favorite events of last year. Celebrating the art of immersive horror storytelling, Overlook masterfully combined immersive experiences, movie films, spoken word, virtual reality, and an overarching immersive game to delight and inspire audiences. This year, The Overlook Film Festival is proud to announce its second year programming lineup below. In addition to the 40 films (23 features and 17 short films from 12 countries) on offer, the festival will feature exciting parties, virtual reality, interactive events, and live performances – all taking place in America’s most haunted city: New Orleans, Louisiana.
Check out our highlights below, including VR experiences from the minds behind Delusion, Third Rail Projects, and Dark Corner, as well as immersive experiences from Blackout, Infinitely Dinner Society, and E3W Productions. In our highlights, we provide links to previous coverage and links to the Haunting-created company pages if you want to learn more about these experiences!!
Non-Immersive Highlights of The Overlook Film Festival:
World Premier & Noteworthy Films:
The festival will world premier the franchise reboot of Puppet Master with its latest entry Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich
On opening night of the festival, audience members will enjoy the chiller Unfriended: Dark Web
It’s closing feature presentation will be A24’s highly anticipated Hereditary
The Centerpiece of the 2018 edition of The Overlook Film Festival is the world premier of St. Agatha, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman.
Vampire Clay may not be a centerpiece, but it looks so damn fun we had to add it to this list! Watch this trailer!
Virtual Reality:
The world premiere of noted experience creator Jon Braver’s Delusion: Lies Within, a fully immersive, 360 degree episodic narrative from Skybound Entertainment.
Night Night comes from Haunting-favorite, Dark Corner. Drift off to dreamland as your mom reads you a short bedtime story–and don’t have any nightmares!
From Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes, Piranha, and Horns) and Dark Corner (again!), Campfire Creepers: The Skull of Sam invites viewers to join the fire circle at a summer camp where kids take turns telling spooky tales.
Wolves in the Walls (Chapter 1) follows an eight-year old girl that believes that wolves live in her walls, but nobody will believe her but you. This blends film, theater, audience agency, and slight of hand; adapted from Neil Gaiman and choreographed by Third Rail Projects!
Born from the mind of will.i.am, Masters of the Sun is an interactive comic book series about a hip-hop group from East LA that must battle an acient god who is turning black drug dealers and gangsters into zombies.
Panels:
Experiencing Total Horror: A Conversation with Immersive Creators, which features Darren Lynn Bousman of The Tension Experience and The Lust Experience fame, Jon Braver of Delusion, and the artists behind this year’s crop of Overlook experiences
How to Build an Interactive Story: The Secrets of OpenMind, discussing Deep Dive’s immersive history and experiences.
Spoken Word:
Paperbacks From Hell offer a tour of a long-lost universe of terror that lurked behind the lurid, foil-embossed, die-cut covers of the books of our past.
The Pumpkin Pie Show will delight audiences with spoken word tales that are so emotional and exciting that you will be on the edge of your seat!
Immersive Highlights of The Overlook Film Festival:
BLACKOUT WORLD PREMIERE Creators: Kristjan Thor and Josh Randall In 2009, an underground immersive horror experience swept through the NYC art scene and began a path that would transform the international theater community. BLACKOUT, the X-rated fear experience designed for adults over 18 to walk through completely alone. Created by directors Kristjan Thor and Josh Randall, BLACKOUT has had productions in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Now at the Overlook Film Festival, BLACKOUT presents the world premiere of a rare and unique opportunity for the adventurous to make their way through what the NEW YORK TIMES has called the “most extreme theater event of the year.” WARNING: This is considered an extreme experience and is exclusively for pass holders. Participants are required to sign a waiver. Slots will be made available exclusively for all-access pass holders.
E3W Productions – In Another Room Directors: Austin and Aaron Keeling Last summer, E3W Productions’ surprise hit ‘In Another Room’ invited guests to explore the richly storied rooms of a notoriously haunted house in Los Angeles, introducing audience members to the inhabitants who lived and died within its walls. Now, E3W Productions is pleased to offer exclusive access to one of the rooms from their debut show, transported to the Bourbon Orleans Hotel for the duration of the Overlook Film Festival. Audiences of three will be invited to step inside this room, where they will meet a previous inhabitant and learn of the tragedies that befell them. ‘In Another Room’ sold out in just three days upon its initial run, and this excerpt promises a haunting, moving, and extremely intimate experience. We invite those of you most attuned to the psychic and supernatural to join us for a once in a lifetime opportunity to come face to face with the unknown. Slots will be made available exclusively for all-access pass holders.
Infinitely Dinner Society: Midnight Snacks Creator, Director: Annie Lesser Infinitely Dinner Society’s Midnight Snacks presents Bananas Foster. IDS Midnight Snacks are late night pairings of food and art with the math and science behind infinity. Previous snacks have included donuts paired with the infinite points of a circle, cheese cubes paired with hypercubes and oyster shooters paired with the intangible nature of infinity. Each snack features food sourced from local bakers, shop owners and farmers markets. For the Overlook Film Festival, creator Annie Lesser has designed a piece based on the cosmic horror of the multiverse featuring Bananas Foster made from Louisiana cane sugar and rum. News about Infinitely Dinner Society and the IDS Midnight Snacks can be found Instagram @infinitelydinnersociety. Slots will be made available exclusively for all-access pass holders.
The Overlook Immersive Game Producer: Mali Elfman For the signature event of the Overlook Film Festival, 2018 introduces a new alternate reality game and welcomes this year’s experience designers Scott Gillies and Nick Tierce, whose credits include a range of projects with companies such as Electronic Arts, Disney, Microsoft, Niantic Labs, and Google. Throughout the entire weekend, uncover an interactive horror mystery that permeates the festival, featuring live actors inhabiting unique locations, hidden clues, tactile puzzles, and surprising twists that each player can engage with at their own level of comfort and curiosity. Follow the clues to become the protagonist of an engaging and thrilling narrative that no two players will experience in exactly the same way. Details of the game’s story will remain locked away until the festival begins, but you may wish to seek out the celestial raven, instantly. The game is available exclusively to festival pass holders, with active player registration limited to 100 available spots. All registered players must attend a game orientation upon festival check-in. Over the course of the game, curious players may receive invitations to engage further for additional immersive depth, which they may opt-in for when the opportunity is presented.
Follow The Overlook Festival on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the most up to date information around the event.
For the complete Overlook Film Festival 2018 schedule, click here.
Jon’s fascination with immersive experiences started with haunted houses, but going through Punchdrunk’s production of Sleep No More opened up an entirely new world. A graduate of Temple University’s film program, he lives in Philadelphia with his cat and enjoys traveling, mixology, and Nine Inch Nails.
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