Schedule of the Dead…

Hysteria Fest is back for its fourth year, and just keeps growing! The festival will run for 4 days, from July 10th - July 13th. Over 50 films. Stand by for films have played at other major horror festivals around the world including Fright Fest, Fantastic Fest, Fantasia, and Panic Fest, along with a couple of premiers of our own.

Find Heavy Anchor Schedule Below

Arkadin:

OPENING ACTS AND FINAL GASPS

5pm: OPENING ACTS

A free shorts block leading to Dead RIngers

Plunge into the eerie and unexplainable—where the supernatural bleeds into madness and the final breath may not be the end. These twisted tales deliver creeping dread, otherworldly forces, and descent-into-darkness horrors that blur the line between reality and nightmare.

Short Films:

The Last Word

It Draws Closer

Undone

The Baby

FINAL GASPS

7pm: Dead Ringers $9

7pm: Dooba Dooba - Feature - $9

Amna expected a relaxed night of babysitting but when she arrives, she learns that her ward is not only a sheltered sixteen year old girl who goes by Moony, but that she is being watched at all times by in-home security cameras. It quickly becomes apparent that Moony is unaccustomed to socializing and that she has a grave misunderstanding of the term friendship.

Short Films:

Rejected

The Moon Rabbit

9pm - Outside: Dead Lover - Feature - $9

A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.

Short Films:

Turn it Off

9pm - inside: The Blood and the Bizarre Shorts Block - $9

A shorts block that dives headfirst into the wild side of horror—where logic is optional, and weird reigns supreme. These films are unhinged, unpredictable, and unapologetically fun, delivering twisted laughs, surreal shocks, and the kind of chaos that reminds you horror should never play it safe.

Defile

Rabbits 

Spotting Trains

Night Feeding 

The Lost Cosmonaut 

Hope 

Vines 

Heavy Anchor:

7pm - Trivia hosted my Frightfulfemme

Cori from Frightfulfemme brings her popular horror trivia series she hosts monthly at Terror Tacos to Hysteria Fest with a trivia event focusing on Canadian horror, FX horror and other categories

9pm - Horror Filmmakers panel

Featuring Eric Stanze, Jackie Kelly, Mando Franco and Douglas Wicker. A panel hosted by Travis Brown of the 4 best horror filmmakers in the midwest.

10pm - FX turtorial featuring local FX master Logan Cole.

Logan Cole is responsible for some of the best and goriest FX work in St Louis and will give a tutorial to both aspiring filmmakers and anyone who wants to see how to make gore come to life.

PROM NIGHT!

Short Films:

CLAUD_IA 

Contraction 

Like Me

6pm - Play Along - Feature: Followed by filmmaker’s Q&A - $9

A relentless captor preys on young women, forcing them into a deadly game of psychological warfare using costumes. When 17-year-old Skylar becomes the first to outsmart him, a battle of wits ensues in a fight for their very survival

8:00pm - The Melody and the Madness Music Video and Shorts Block - Free!

(playing both Heavy Anchor and Arkadin during the 2025 Prom)

Films:

Lupe Q and the Galactic Corn Cake (short)

Release the Hounds (Music Video)

Castle Upon the Hill (Music Video)

The Black Hole (Short)

Silverberry (Music Video)

9:15ish Outside - Hello Mary Lou Prom Night 2 - $9

9:15ish Inside - The Damnation - Feature - $9

‘The Damnation’ takes place in the small largely Indigenous Canadian communities of Creek and Buffalo Mines. Since the closing of the mines a number of years ago the area is a shell of its once thriving past. The area is mostly made up of seniors and Indigenous people who have inhabited the area for hundreds of years. To further complicate matters developers - led by a mysterious religious figure have appeared and are clearcutting the land. These developments and age-old colonial sentiments have helped un-earth a malignant evil that begins not only destroying the environment; but feeding on the blood of locals.

Short Film:

Firecrow

6pm - Free screening of feature In the Flesh

7pm - LIVE PODCAST

with Destroy the Brain

Andy, Jeremy and the DTB Crew will be doing a live podcast from the stage of The Heavy Anchor!

8:30ish pm - The Melody and the Madness

Music Video and Shorts Block

Lupe Q and the Gallactic Corn Cake (short)

Release the Hounds (music video)

Castle Upon the Hill (music video)

Black Hole (short)

Silverberry (music video)

9:15 - Eat Cute (short)

A human and a vampire team up to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Free screening of Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2!

1pm - Beyond the Drumlins - Feature - $9

The leaves have started to change, but Professor Jonathan Rust is still woefully ill-prepared for the coming semester. With the help of a fellow professor, his teaching assistant, an old friend and a hired hand, the team searches for a suitable dig site for the archeology department’s field work course. The trip presents a rare opportunity for Jonathan to get his hands dirty and success could mean publication and just maybe - tenure. The expedition is quickly derailed when a member of the team mysteriously vanishes. Soon, the group finds themselves at the intersection of reality and the afterlife in a harrowing descent into madness.

3pm - La Sombra y la Sangre. A Spanish shorts block. - $9

A celebration of Spanish-language horror from across the globe.This block weaves through wild and unhinged nightmares, playful thrills, and stories drenched in mystery and dread. From surreal chaos to quiet terror, these films prove that horror speaks many dialects—and all of them scream.

Short Films:

Evil Dinner

Umbra

The Christ of the Skull

The Pretty

5pm - Haze - $9

A young man returns home after rehab and uncovers the secrets of his town's abandoned psychiatric center.

7pm - Curtains - $9