If you’re going to create a horror film festival, there are few places on this planet that I think are better suited to host such an event as Salem, Massachusetts. The home of the infamous Salem Witch Trials, the town embraces the dark history of its past, making it a prime destination for any horror fan, especially during the Halloween season.

Starting this year and running from September 21st through October 15th, those who come to Salem before Halloween can partake in the Salem Film Festival, a four-week event that will feature film screening, exhibits, concerts, and more! On top of diving into horror, this event also aims to “…explore societal themes of fear and anxiety.”

Festival director Kevin Lynch explains, “We live in fear. Fear of failure, commitment, each other and beyond. It’s one of the few things that unites us all. Salem knows this more than most. The cinema is a graveyard of cultural reflections trapped in time like a celluloid ouija board. If we are to overcome fear, we must first understand it.”

Below is a schedule of confirmed events, which include screenings of new and old films, art galleries, and panel events.

For more information, you can visit the festival’s official website.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Opening Night Party

Salem Horror Fest partners with the Peabody Essex Museum to bring you the ultimate kickoff to the Halloween season! Featuring PEM special exhibition It’s Alive!: Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection, come haunt our inaugural Horror Fest with this night of live music, and interactive programming as part of the PEM/PM evening party series.

Thursday, September 21, 6p

Peabody Essex Museum

M Lamar

This “otherworldly, goth-tinged projection into the distant future of our violent, racially and sexually charged present offers a space of melancholic, alluring, ultimately stirring reflection.” – New York Times

Join us for this very special performance, featuring Queer Soprano M Lamar, who will perform an assemblage of old spirituals, in the “gothic-devil-worshipping-free-black-man-blues-tradition” in recognition of the 156th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Friday, September 22, 8p

Ames Hall at the Salem YMCA

Wicked Shorts

Wicked Shorts celebrates independent filmmakers with a timely showcase of terrifying horror shorts. Submitted films will be curated and considered for the first annual Orlok Award, named in honor of Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery’s 10th anniversary.

Thursday, October 5, 8p

CinemaSalem

Women With Guts

Salem Horror Fest partners with Rue Morgue Magazine to celebrate women in horror for the New England premiere of SXSW hit Tragedy Girls! The screening will be paired with Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood followed by a post-credit Q&A with the film’s stars Lar Park Lincoln and man behind the mask, Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees) moderated by The Faculty of Horror.

Saturday, October 7, 6p

CinemaSalem

SCREENINGS

Night of the Living Dead

Director: George A. Romero

America: The year is 1968. The Cold War is approaching détente, the Civil Rights Movement is winding down, Vietnam continues to escalate… And then come the zombies, creeping in through the cracks in American life. Taking shelter in an abandoned farm house, seven strangers must navigate their differences before the walls give way to a ravenous zombie horde.

Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) will accept the first-ever Salem Horror Award on behalf of Duane Jones for his cultural contribution to the cinema as one of the first positive representations of a person of color on the big screen.

Thursday, September 21, 9p

Morse Auditorium at the Peabody Essex Museum

Matinee

Director: Joe Dante

The escalation of the Cuban Missile Crisis collides with the premiere of a new atomic-age monster picture, MANT. This comedic homage to legendary producer William Castle celebrates the joy of horror cinema and theatrical gimmicks in one of Joe Dante’s (Gremlins, The Burbs) most underrated films. Panel discussion to follow.

Sunday, September 24, 2p

Morse Auditorium at the Peabody Essex Museum

Gods & Monsters

Director: Bill Condon

The last days and career of renown gay horror director James Whale (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man) are explored in this biographical drama set in the time following the Korean War. Panel discussion to follow.

Saturday, September 30, 2p

Morse Auditorium at the Peabody Essex Museum

The Haunting

Director: Robert Wise

A scientist, skeptic, psychic and lesbian question reality as they explore a large, eerie mansion with a lurid history of death and insanity in this 1963 horror classic. Panel discussion to follow.

Sunday, October 1, 2p

Morse Auditorium at the Peabody Essex Museum

Get Out

Director: Jordan Peele

Slavery is a zombie in Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out, which falls somewhere between Alfred Hitchcock and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Chris is preparing to meet his girlfriend Rose’s Caucasian family for the first time. What could go wrong?

Friday, October 6, 7p

CinemaSalem

People Under the Stairs

Director: Wes Craven

Gentrification and racism are among the topics of socioeconomics tackled by this 1991 Wes Craven offering. On his 13th birthday, young Fool attempts to burglarize the house of his family’s evil landlords, before making a horrifying discovery in a tongue-in-cheek tale set in a post-Reaganomic, urban apocalypse.

Friday, October 6, 9p

CinemaSalem

Tragedy Girls

Director: Tyler MacIntyre

Salem Horror Fest presents the New England premiere of Tyler MacIntyre’s Tragedy Girls, following the unanimously positive response at the 2017 SXSW Festival!

Named “one of the freshest, funniest horror-comedies to emerge in ‘Scream’s’ long wake,” by Variety, the film stars Alexandra Shipp (X-Men Apocalypse) and Brianna Hildebrand (Deadpool) as two social media-obsessed high school serial killers who use their online show to turn their small town into a frenzy.

Saturday, October 7, 7p

CinemaSalem

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Director: John Carl Buechler

Jason Voorhees has been imprisoned at the bottom of Crystal Lake for years, until a troubled, and telekinetic teenager unwittingly sets him loose upon the camp, once more. This installment of the franchise steps away from the classic elements of gore, and takes a more supernatural turn.

Saturday, October 7, 9p

CinemaSalem

American Psycho

Director: Mary Harron

Do you like Huey Lewis and the News? You never know if it’ll be the last thing you hear. Grab your Walkman and unsettle yourself for this cult-classic interpretation of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. Patrick Bateman is an Alpha Male, CEO/psycho, whose murderous, misogynistic fantasies begin bleeding into his reality, in this dark-comedy directed by Mary Harron.

Sunday, October 8, 7p

CinemaSalem

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Director: Tobe Hooper

What you are about to see is true. Who’s to say, really? First released while America was struggling with the realities of an oil embargo, the impeachment of a president, and what seemed like endless war, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a direct response to the horrors of its time.

Sunday, October 8, 9p

CinemaSalem

The Mist

Director: Frank Darabont

A supermarket becomes a petri dish in this film inspired by the Stephen King novella of the same name. A group of strangers are forced to confront the unknown as a unit, as a mysterious mist rolls in around them. Are they human enough to survive? Or are they too human for their own good?

Monday, October 9, 7p

CinemaSalem

They Live

Director: John Carpenter

In a world where the media is flooded with subliminal messages constantly making demands of humanity to conform, obey, consume, and reproduce, it would seem the only thing left to do is throw on some shades, and see the true horror that is our ruling class. John Carpenter’s 1988 commentary on the state of American democracy, society, and consumerism.

Monday, October 9, 9p

CinemaSalem

Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

Director: Jack Sholder

This 1985 camp classic explores the homoerotic horrors of high school when the man of Jesse’s dreams, Freddy Krueger, claims his body as a portal into the world of flesh.

Friday, October 13, 7p

CinemaSalem

Cruising

Director: William Friedkin

Al Pacino stars in this controversial crime thriller from 1980. When human remains begin washing up in the Hudson River, the NYPD sends an undercover officer to investigate a string of murders in the Meatpacking District, in which gay men are targeted specifically.

Friday, October 13, 9p

CinemaSalem

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace

Somewhat of a departure from the slasher genre and Halloween franchise canon, though nonetheless produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Season of the Witch delves into the supernatural as terror takes root in the themes of commercialism, media manipulation, and the superstitions and traditions of All Hallows Eve.

Friday, October 14, 7p

CinemaSalem

Videodrome

Director: David Cronenberg

Director David Cronenberg serves up this chilling and surreal gauge at media consumption. James Woods stars as Max Renn, President of a Canadian UHF television station known for its outrageous programming. After coming across a disturbing broadcast from far away, Renn is inspired to deliver high levels of violence to his viewers in ways previously unimagined.

Saturday, October 14, 9p

CinemaSalem

Let the Right One In

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Part vampire movie, part coming-of-age film, Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In is a refreshing visit to an otherwise well trod genre. A young teen, frequently the target of schoolyard bullies, makes a new friend in a mysterious neighbor who has just moved in next door, in what Roger Ebert called “the best modern vampire movie.”

Sunday, October 15, 7p

CinemaSalem

Fright Night

Director: Tom Holland

Charley Brewster enjoys the rather simple life of a 17-year-old horror fan. He watches the movies, and really digs the late-nite horror show, “Fright Night.” But things start to get a little strange when two guys move in next door. They spend a lot of time alone together, and seem to be quite… close with each other.

Sunday, October 15, 9p

CinemaSalem

EXHIBITIONS

“It’s Alive” Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art From the Kirk Hammett Collection

Kirk Hammett, best known as the guitarist of the rock band Metallica, is also an avid collector of classic horror and sci-fi movie posters. This exhibition features 90 works that provide insight into the evolution of horror and sci-fi films and how they have played upon contemporary societal fears. Hammett acknowledges his poster collection as a source of inspiration for his own musical creativity. The exhibition features film posters as well as collectible electric guitars, monster masks and sculptures.

Saturday, August 12 – November 26, 2017

Peabody Essex Museum

Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery

Prepare for a delightfully creepy journey down the eerie exhibit halls as you discover characters from the darker side of cinema. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, demons, madmen (and women), and all things that go bump in the night are all represented here by life-sized reproductions made by Hollywood Special Effects Artists.