Body Horror, Bigfoot and a Head in a Toilet: Overlook 2026 Is Unmissable

The Overlook Film Festival returns to New Orleans for its tenth anniversary edition this April, and the lineup is absolutely stacked. Running April 9-12 across the Prytania Theatres, this year’s programme is the festival’s biggest yet, a sprawling, ambitious selection that mixes eagerly anticipated 2026 releases with world premieres, retrospectives, and the kind of genre-bending curios that make Overlook essential viewing.

What’s immediately striking about the 2026 slate is its thematic coherence around identity and transformation, queer horror, body horror, obsession, and the monstrous self, which recur throughout. There’s also a notable expansion into what the festival calls “Side Shows”, genre films that aren’t strictly horror but share the same DNA of tension, gore, and artistry. It’s a smart move that acknowledges how porous genre boundaries have become.

Below are all the feature films announced for Overlook 2026. No shorts, no panels, no immersive experiences, just the films.

Obsession (Focus Features)

Opening Night Film – Director/Writer: Curry Barker
Cast: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter

Writer-director Curry Barker’s relationship horror kicks off the festival with a premise that’s both simple and skin-crawling: a lovelorn twentysomething makes a wish on a novelty toy to win over his crush, only to discover his dreams are far worse than any nightmare. Focus Features backing this suggests they’ve got confidence in Barker’s vision; opening night slots aren’t given lightly.

Hokum (NEON)

Closing Night Film – Director: Damian McCarthy
Cast: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, Will O’Connell, Michael Patric, Siox C, Brendan Conroy, Austin Amelio, Ezra Carlisle

Damian McCarthy returns to Overlook after his 2024 hit Oddity took home the Audience Award, and Hokum sounds like it’s leaning even harder into folk horror dread. Adam Scott plays a cynical novelist who retreats to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, only to become consumed by tales of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. Disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance force him to confront his past. McCarthy has proven he can do slow-burn terror with genuine scares; this should be a hell of a closer.

Watch the 40-second teaser trailer – I have it on good authority played in cinmeas, this one got the audience jumping.

Leviticus (NEON) – Australian Cinema

Director: Adrian Chiarella
Cast: Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen, Mia Wasikowska, Jeremy Blewitt, Ewen Leslie, Davida McKenzie

Australian director Adrian Chiarella’s queer horror film is getting major festival positioning for good reason. Set in an ultra-religious, isolated community, it follows two closeted high school lovers whose relationship is exposed, forcing them into a bizarre form of conversion therapy that unleashes something deadly. The premise alone is chilling, using literal horror to explore the violence of forced conformity and religious trauma. Mia Wasikowska’s presence adds arthouse credibility, and Neon’s distribution suggests they see awards potential here. The PR describes it as “equally terrifying and sensitive,” which is a difficult balance to strike, but if Chiarella pulls it off, this could be one of 2026’s essential horror films.

WORLD PREMIERES

Goody Goody

Cast: Colleen Foy, Samantha Robinson, Zoe Renee, Colby Hollman

Raymond Creamer’s home birth horror sounds genuinely unsettling, as expecting parents and their midwife realize something’s horribly wrong as labor complications mount and a blizzard traps them inside with whatever sinister presence is lurking. Pregnancy horror is having a moment, and the isolated setting gives this claustrophobic potential.

Trauma or Monsters All

Cast: Alex Breaux, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Barbara Crampton, Aitana Doyle, Larry Fessenden, Rigo Garay, Steve Heller, Laetitia Hollard, Alex Hurt, Cody Kostro, James Le Gros

Larry Fessenden closes out his personal quadrilogy with this monster mash that brings together creatures from Habit (1995), Depraved (2019), and Blackout (2023). An aspiring author writes about her small town’s dark history and inadvertently stirs up speculation about what monsters lurk within. Overlook is screening all four films, so you can marathon the entire Fessenden-verse if you’re committed. This is fiercely independent horror filmmaking from one of the genre’s most thoughtful voices. Fessenden’s work has influenced generations of indie horror directors, and this finale should be treated as an event.

Genre diversions from horror tailor-made for the world of the Overlook

The Furious (Lionsgate)

Cast: Miao Xie, Joe Taslim, Yang Enyou, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga

Director Kenji Tanigaki’s action thriller follows a desperate father who teams up with a street-smart journalist to fight through an international criminal network to save his abducted daughter. This is pure adrenaline, the PR promises gory, pulse-pounding, take-no-prisoners action. Joe Taslim (of The Raid and The Night Comes for Us) is a reliable indicator of quality martial arts choreography.

Normal (Magnolia Pictures)

Cast: Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, Lena Headey

Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers) directing Bob Odenkirk in an action thriller is an inspired pairing. Odenkirk plays a small-town sheriff who, following a local bank robbery, uncovers a web of dark dealings in his own community. Wheatley’s genre-bending instincts combined with Odenkirk’s everyman intensity (perfected in Nobody and Better Call Saul) should produce something razor-sharp and nasty.

Over Your Dead Body (IFC Films)

Cast: Jason Segel, Samara Weaving, Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, Paul Guilfoyle, Keith Jardine

Jorma Taccone (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, The Lonely Island) directs this action-comedy remake of Tommy Wirkola’s The Trip, in which a married couple (Jason Segel and Samara Weaving) use a romantic weekend getaway as cover to secretly plot each other’s murder. The original was darkly hilarious; Taccone’s comedic instincts should translate that Norwegian sensibility into something pitch-perfect. IFC backing it is a good sign. [Director in attendance]

INTERNATIONAL TITLES

Presented by MUBI

Affection

Cast: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne / Director: BT Meza

BT Meza’s psychological thriller follows Ellie, who wakes after a brutal car accident with a rare condition that frequently resets her memory. As she tries to readjust to life with her husband and daughter in their secluded home, she gets the unsettling feeling that not everything is as it seems. Memory-loss horror is well-trodden territory, but the secluded setting and domestic focus could yield genuine paranoia. [Filmmaker in attendance]

American Dollhouse

Cast: Hailley Lauren, Kelsey Pribilski, Tinus Seaux, Danielle Evon Ploeger, Richard C. Jones

Director: John Valley

John Valley’s stalker horror: a woman inherits her childhood home and becomes the object of her psychotic neighbor’s obsession, spiraling into a violent path of stalking and possession that leads to “an extremely bloody Christmas.” The Christmas setting is a nice touch; festive horror always plays well. [Filmmaker in attendance]

Buddy

Cast: Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key, Michael Shannon, Patton Oswalt

Casper Kelly, the twisted mind behind Too Many Cooks and Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell, directs this tale of a courageous girl and her friends who must escape a sinister kids’ TV show mascot when he can no longer suppress his murderous tendencies. If you know Kelly’s work, you know this will be darkly hilarious, surreal, and probably traumatizing in the best way. The cast is stacked with comedy talent, which suggests Kelly’s playing the horror-comedy balance for maximum discomfort.

Buffet Infinity

Cast: Kevin Singh, Claire Theobald, Donovan Workun

Simon Glassman’s “cutting-edge creepshow” is told entirely through fake commercials about rival restaurants competing for their town’s business. The PR asks: “What is going on in Westridge County?” This sounds genuinely experimental; horror through the lens of local TV advertising is a fresh angle, and the episodic structure could allow for some truly unhinged escalation.

Capturing Bigfoot

Cast: Clint Patterson, Bob Gimlin, Bob Heironimus, Larry Lund, Greg Long, Vaile Thompson, Sandy Collier, Bill Munns

Marq Evans’ documentary investigates the Patterson-Gimlin film, the most analyzed 59 seconds in Bigfoot history, shot in 1967. Fifty-seven years later, a reel of 16mm film discovered in a safe changes everything. This is either going to be a serious examination of cryptozoology’s most famous footage or a playful deconstruction of belief and hoaxing. Either way, it belongs at Overlook.

Crasmps! A Period Piece

Local Spotlight
Cast: Lauren Kitchen, Vincent Stalba, Jared Bankens, Martini Bear, P*$$y D’lish, Wicken Taylor, Sylvia Grace Crim, Michelle Malentina, Brooklyn Woods, Olivia Peck, Penny Leleux, Harlie Madison

Overlook alum Brooke H. Cellars (previous Grand Jury Prize winner) makes their feature debut with this technicolor, campy, gory tale set in a town full of dueling beauty shops and drag queens. A young woman’s quest to defy her family is upended when her menstrual cramps manifest as actual monsters. The premise is absurd and brilliant, horror-comedy with a queer sensibility and practical creature effects. 

Drag

Cast: Lizzy Caplan, Lucy DeVito, John Stamos, Christine Ko

Raviv Ullman and Greg Yagolnitzer’s horror-comedy: two sisters, one empty house, a simple burglary plan. If only one of them hadn’t thrown her back out. This is a ticking-clock survival crawl with a killer hook, literally immobilized during a crime. The cast is strong, and the premise is lean enough to sustain feature length if the filmmakers commit to the bit. 

Exit 8

Cast: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, Kotone Hanase, Nana Komatsu

Genki Kawamura adapts the hit video game about a man trapped in an endless, sterile subway corridor. The rules are simple: spot an anomaly, turn back. Miss it, keep going. Exit from Exit 8. One oversight sends you back to the beginning. This is high-concept horror with a gaming logic, repetition, pattern recognition, and mounting dread. If it captures the game’s unsettling atmosphere, it could be genuinely creepy.

Faces of Death

Cast: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler, Charli XCX

Daniel Goldhaber’s remake/reimagining was shot in New Orleans and stars Barbie Ferreira as a social media moderator who uncovers a series of visceral snuff videos that resemble the mythical 1978 cult film Faces of Death. This is smart casting. Ferreira brings vulnerability and intelligence, and the premise updates the original’s shockumentary format for the age of content moderation and viral death videos. Charli XCX’s presence suggests there’s a pop-cultural commentary angle here. Goldhaber knows how to shoot stylish, nasty genre work (Cam), and the New Orleans setting should give this local flavor. 

For the trailer, check out Mother of Movies’ Upcoming Horror List.

Flush

Cast: Jonathan Lambert, Élodie Navarre, Rémy Adriaens, Elliot Jenicot

Grégory Morin’s French gross-out comedy: a well-intentioned cocaine addict finds himself trapped with his head stuck in a squat toilet after a drug deal gone wrong. To survive the night, he must contend with ruthless gangsters, a mischievous rat, and “a barrage of other shit (literally).” This is festival programming at its most gleefully disgusting, the kind of film that plays to a midnight crowd losing their minds.

Grind

Cast: Barbara Crampton, Rob Huebel, Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette, Vinny Thomas, Jessika Van, James A Janisse, James Urbaniak, James Paxton, Ify Nwadiwe

Overlook alums Brea Grant, Ed Dougherty, and Chelsea Stardust return with an anthology examining modern work culture through four distinct horror stories (including Overlook hit MLM). This is horror as social commentary, the grind of menial labor, inequality, and late-stage capitalism rendered as a literal nightmare. Barbara Crampton’s presence is always a good sign. 

The Holy Boy

Cast: Michele Riondino, Giulio Feltri

Paolo Strippoli’s Italian folk horror is set in a mountain village where the townspeople are healed weekly by the touch of a 15-year-old boy with special powers. A new PE teacher, haunted by his past, arrives determined to uncover the truth. This sounds like it’s mining similar territory to Midsommar and The Wicker Man, idyllic communities with dark secrets, outsider perspective, religious ecstasy masking something sinister.

Mārama

Cast: Ariana Osborne, Toby Stephens, Umi Myers

Taratoa Stappard’s gothic horror is set in 1859 North Yorkshire, where a Māori teacher travels to a wealthy whaler’s manor searching for buried truths about her family. What she finds are dark secrets that define the grim legacy of the British Empire. This is colonial horror, the genre’s recent reckoning with empire and extraction given a Kiwi perspective. The gothic setting, combined with Māori cultural context, should produce something genuinely unsettling. Revenge horror never looked so regal.

Never After Dark

Cast: Moeka Hoshi, Kento Kaku, Kurumi Inagaki, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Bokuzo Masana, Tae Kimura

Dave Boyle’s Japanese ghost story follows a medium for hire, assisted by her deceased sister’s spirit, who takes on a case involving a grotesque apparition haunting an isolated country home. As she investigates, she realizes the greatest threats aren’t the dead but the living around her. This sounds like it’s subverting J-horror expectations; the ghosts aren’t the problem, people are. 

New Group

Cast: Yuzu Aoki, Pierre Taki

Yûta Shimotsu, director of Overlook 2025’s Scariest Feature winner Best Wishes to All, returns with a vision of youth, conformity, and authoritarianism. Students in a modern high school are violently forced to participate in increasingly disturbing, physically demanding, and surreal tasks to assimilate. This is school-as-horror-institution taken to nightmarish extremes. Shimotsu clearly has a vision, and Overlook’s faith in bringing him back immediately is telling.

Parasomnia

Cast: Jasmine Mathews, RJ Brown, Sally Stewart, Stephen Barrington, Danny Brown, Simon Longnight

James Ross II’s sleep terror horror follows Riley, a young woman with lifelong debilitating night terrors, who must confront the possibility that the demonic entity stalking her dreams has followed her into the waking world. Parasomnia horror (sleep paralysis, night terrors, hypnagogic hallucinations) is ripe territory, and if Ross can capture the specific dread of being trapped between sleep and waking, this could be genuinely frightening. 

The Restoration at Grayson Manor

Cast: Chris Colfer, Alice Krige, Daniel Adegboyega, Declan Reynolds, Gabriela Garcia Vargas, Matthew McMahon

Glenn McQuaid directs this adaptation of Clay McLeod Chapman’s story about the proprietor of Grayson Manor who, after losing his hands in an accident, receives experimental prosthetics controlled by his subconscious. The PR describes it as “sexy, pulpy, Warhol-coded,” which is not a description you often see. McQuaid (I Sell the Dead) knows how to balance horror and dark comedy, and Chapman’s writing is always twisted and smart.

Saccharine

Cast: Midori Francis, Danielle Macdonald, Madeleine Madden

Natalie Erika James (Relic) returns with body horror about a medical student who accepts a mysterious weight-loss drug and undergoes unwanted transformation. The PR promises “goopy, sickening, violent” imagery. James’ debut was a slow-burn haunted house film about dementia and decay; this sounds more visceral and grotesque. Body horror about weight loss and pharmaceutical intervention has obvious social commentary potential, beauty standards, medical exploitation, and bodily autonomy.

Suffocation

Cast: Yao Ai Ning, Wang Yu Ping, Chu Meng Syuan, Julia Huang, Rainie Dun, Helen Wang, Chun Hong

Louis Chan and Stone Chang’s Taiwanese horror follows elite high school swimmers cursed by a mysterious evil after releasing a video exposing a teacher-student relationship. The film is told through haunting Steadicam shots, which suggest formal ambition. This is J-horror tropes filtered through the Taiwanese context, the curse, the video, the institutional abuse.

Ugly Cry

Cast: Emily Robinson, Ryan Simpkins, Aaron Dominguez, Robin Tunney, Andrew Leeds, Heather Morris, Chalia La Tour, Ray Abruzzo, Sophie Von Haselberg, Josh Ruben, Melinda McGraw

Emily Robinson writes, directs, and stars in this Repulsion-esque thriller about an actor whose desperate determination to break into Hollywood leads her down a spiral of obsession, delusion, and augmentation. This is body horror meets showbiz satire, the violence we do to ourselves in pursuit of impossible standards. First-time writer-directors starring in their own films is always a risk, but the Repulsion comparison suggests Robinson understands the psychological horror tradition she’s working in. 

International Titles at the Overlook Film Festival 2026

Boorman and the Devil

Featuring: John Boorman, Louise Fletcher, Karyn Kusama, Mike Flanagan, Joe Dante

Director: David Kittredge

David Kittredge’s documentary is about John Boorman’s attempt to make a sequel to The Exorcist, one of the biggest bombs in horror history. Hot off Deliverance, Boorman took on Exorcist II: The Heretic, and the result was a disaster. This doc features interviews with Boorman, Louise Fletcher, and contemporary horror directors (Kusama, Flanagan, Dante) reflecting on the film’s legacy.

Chili Finger

Cast: Judy Greer, Sean Astin, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Madeline Wise, Paul Stanko, Sarah Herrman, Sara Sevigny, Dann Florek

Edd Benda and Stephen Helstad’s Coen Brothers-esque thriller is about a down-on-their-luck couple who find a gruesome surprise at their favorite fast food chain and hatch a blackmail plot that spirals out of control. The cast is absurdly stacked, with Cranston, Goodman, Greer, Astin, and the premise (inspired by the real-life Wendy’s chili finger incident) is both darkly funny and genuinely tense. This could be the sleeper hit of the festival. 

For more details, direct from the festival, follow this link.