Tucson Terror Fest is ready to scare the pants off of you through film

David Pike promises a little bit of everything that scares you in terms of movies at this year’s Tucson Terrorfest.

There will be slashers and parasitic lake monsters, Korean ghosts and the Jersey Devil.

About 35 shorts and full-length films, nearly all new to Tucson audiences, will be shown from Thursday, Oct. 21, through Sunday, Oct. 24, at The Screening Room downtown, 127 E. Congress St.

“We are doing more movies than we’ve really ever done,” Pike said. “It is a gigantic mix of everything.”

Now in its 11th year, the Tucson Terrorfest has evolved beyond film and features a full-on convention, to be held this year at the DoubleTree by Hilton Tucson Downtown Convention Center, 280 S. Church Ave., on Saturday, Oct. 23 and Sunday, Oct. 24.

The convention will include local and regional horror entities promoting their products and projects. Gore Noir magazine out of Las Vegas is slated to have a table this year.

For Pike, who owns and operates the Screening Room, programming films for the festival will always take priority.

He’s kicking off the fest with “Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster,” a documentary about the man who played Frankenstein best, with commentary by the likes of directors John Landis and Guillermo del Toro.

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“That one takes us back in time for a man who did so much for horror,” Pike said.

From there, he transitions into a several days of movies designed to scare the pants off of viewers, including “Koreatown Ghost Story,” a supernatural horror short starring actress Margaret Cho and “The House by the Cemetery,” a 1981 cult classic from Italian director Lucio Fulcí.

Pike said he has seen a lot of interest in this year’s festival, in part because people have been more comfortable coming out.

The Screening Room has held two film festivals, the Arizona Underground Film Festival and the Tucson Film and Music Festival, in the last couple of months, both of which went off without a hitch.

“There is a lot of excitement about getting back into the theater,” Pike said.

For a full rundown and movies times and ticket prices, visit tucsonterrorfest.com