The controversial french horror film, RAW will be the official opening Night Film at Monster Fest. Monster Fest has become the premier genre film festival in Australia and to open with this gut wrenching film is only right. The film festival will begin November 24th and continue to November 27th. The film first made its appearance at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and received the coveted FIPRESCI Award.

RAW is french director Julia Ducournau’s debut feature film. The film tell the story of a young vegetarian who discovers her dark side when she is forced to participate in a carnivorous hazing ritual on her first day at Veterinary school. This coming-of-age film will delight cinephiles and horror genre fans! The cannibalism seems very real and gut wrenching, so you have been warned. An example of how real looking it is, during the Toronto International Film Festival, RAW had its international Premiere and the film made headline when paramedics had to treat three people who fainted during the film.

RAW will open the festival and conclude the night with the Opening Night Gala. Tickets will go on sale over the next few week, so you have plenty of time to get your seat to see this beautifully crafted film. The ticket sale announcements will be posted on the Monster Fest Website and its social media outlets.

Monsterfest has also announced a sidebar that will be features at the festival. The sidebar, ‘Frequencies’ will focus on genre narratives made for or about the small screen. “Frequencies will begin with its headline, World Premiere launch of Are You In The House Alone? A TV Movie Compendium 1964-1999. The film was edited by Amanda Reyes, American television scholar, who will appear at the festival in a clip-and-tell panel about the history of television movies. She will be joined by Lee Gambin, John Harrison and Mareen Fields. The screening of Buzz Kulik’s 1974 tele-fright, Bad Ronald, will follow the screening.

In addition to the small screen premieres, this section of the festival will include the Australian Premiere of Jackson Stewart’s Beyond The Gates, starring Graham Skipper (The Mind’s Eye) and Chase Williamson (John Dies at the End) as two brothers who find that a VHS board game may be connected to the disappearance of their father. This film will be presented by umbrella Entertainment, and following the presentation the Nightmare VHS Board Game Party in association with Toronto’s Black Museum will begin.

This year’s Monster Symposium of Multimedia lectures on broadcasting themes will include presentations from Jodi McAlister, Dierdre Hall is the Devil, on occultism on daytime soaps, Andrew Nette on long-unavailable Australian horror anthology show Evil Touch, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on Ghostwatch, Kier-La Janisse on 1968 teleplay THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS, and Andrew Nette & Dean Brandum on Crawford crime show HOMICIDE. A special screening of the 1964 episode “Witch Hunt'” will follow. 

This festival’s line-up keeps getting better! All-Access Passes to Monster Fest 2016are on sale here.

Tickets for the recently announced Ted Kotcheff masterclass at the Swinburne University Media and Communication Monster Academy are available here.