Overlook Film Festival 2022 Announces Main Slate Featuring 'The Cow' and 'Resurrection'

The Overlook Film Festival returns to New Orleans with a stellar lineup. The annual 4 day film festival, dedicated to all things horror, will kick off next month from June 2-5. The event has everything from short films, feature length films, panels, vendors and immersive experiences as well. They have just announced their opening night film and a slate of other films, check them out below.

Highlights of from the first wave featured two world premieres, including SWALLOWED from director Carter Smith (THE RUINS) starring Jena Malone as well as Duncan Birmingham’s directorial debut WHO INVITED THEM?. Also included in the initial program are festival favorites RESURRECTION, starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth, WATCHER starring Maika Monroe, DEADSTREAM, JETHICA, and Peter Strickland’s FLUX GOURMET.

Additional premieres include Mark Meir’s feature debut, THE SUMMONED. The Overlook stacks its lineup with fresh discoveries and festival favorites, such as ROGER CORMAN, THE POPE OF POP CINEMA, with Joe Dante, Peter Bogdonavich and Ron Howard, as well as Eli Horowitz’s THE COW, starring Winona Ryder and John Gallagher Jr., legendary FX guru Phil Tippet’s visionary opus MAD GOD, Carlota Pereda’s striking first feature PIGGY, and SXSW sensation HYPOCHONDRIAC, starring Zach Villa.

Overlook is also thrilled to partner with fandom apparel powerhouse Super Yaki to produce exclusive limited edition festival merchandise. Pre-orders will be available beginning Tuesday, May 3rd, with open availability through Sunday, May 8th.

OPENING NIGHT PRESENTATION

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon

The festival will open with the North American premiere of Ana Lily Amirpour’s MONA LISA AND THE BLOOD MOON. An incredible cast including Jeon Jong-soo, Kate Hudson and Craig Robinson make this violent, surreal, homegrown crowd-pleaser glow with the character of the city.

Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Cast: Jeon Jong-seo, Kate Hudson, Craig Robinson, Evan Whitten, Ed Skrein United States, 2022

CLOSING NIGHT FILM PRESENTATION

The Black Phone

The Overlook Film Festival is proud to announce its closing night film and first wave of the 2022 festival lineup. The festival will close with Universal Pictures and Blumhouse’s The Black Phone. Based on an award-winning short story from Joe Hill’s best-selling 2005 collection 20th Century Ghosts, this new horror thriller from the filmmakers of Sinister stars four-time Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke and marks the triumphant return to the genre for screenwriter C. Robert Cargill and director-screenwriter Scott Derrickson.

Director: Scott Derrickson
Cast: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone and Ethan Hawke
United States, 2022
The minds behind Sinister and Dr. Strange return to horror with this terrifying tale of a shy 13-year-old boy (Thames), abducted and trapped in a soundproof basement by a sadistic killer (Hawke), who begins to receive mysterious calls, on a dead telephone, from the killer’s previous victims.

FEATURE FILM PRESENTATIONS

The Cow

Director: Eli Horowitz
Cast: Winona Ryder, Dermot Mulroney, Brianne Tju, John Gallagher Jr., and Owen Teague.

Kath (Ryder) and her boyfriend Max (Gallagher Jr.) head off to the Redwoods for a getaway, only to discover that their Airbnb has been double booked by another couple. Out of viable options, the four decide to the share the house for the night. When Kath wakes up in the morning, only to find Max has disappeared, it sends her on a dangerous and surreal journey in this creepy, twisty thriller.

Deadstream

Directors: Joseph Winter, Vanessa Winter
Cast: Joseph Winter, Melanie Stone
USA, 2022
This go-for-broke gorefest sees an arrogant, stunt-driven video blogger, on the verge of social cancellation, who gets exactly what he bargained for when he faces his craziest challenge yet – spending a night in an actual haunted house.

Flux Gourmet

Director: Peter Strickland
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Gwendoline Christie
UK/USA/Hungary, 2022
Peter Strickland (In Fabric, The Duke of Burgundy), the master of oddities, is back with his latest tale, a portrait of an institute devoted to culinary and alimentary performances where power struggles, bizarre fetishes, gastro-intestinal issues and revenge abound.

Good Madam

Director: Jenna Cato Bass
Cast: Chumisa Cosa, Nosipho Mtebe
South Africa, 2021
South African director Jenna Bass ingeniously riffs on the haunted house and folk horror tropes in the chilling tale of a woman who begins to discover oppressive, supernatural echoes from the Apartheid era when she is forced to move in with her mother, a live-in servant at an affluent Cape Town estate.

Hypochondriac

Director: Addison Heimann
Cast: Zach Villa, Devon Graye, Madeline Zima, Yumarie Morales, Marlene Forte
USA, 2022
The life of a young, gay potter begins to spin out of control when he realizes he’s losing control of his bodily functions while being haunted by an unknown presence tied to his past in this blistering, erotic spookfest.

Jethica

Director: Pete Ohs
Cast: Callie Hernandez, Will Madden, Ashley Denise Robinson, Andy Faulkner
USA, 2022
When Jessica’s stalker follows her to a remote area of New Mexico, her and her estranged high school friend must enlist spectral assistance in this thoughtful, often comedic ghost story that skewers toxic masculinity in modern dating.

Mad God

Director: Phil Tippet
Cast: Alex Cox, Niketa Roman, Satish Ratakonda, Harper Taylor, Brynn Taylor
USA, 2021
Legendary animator and VFX wizard Phil Tippett makes his long awaited feature directorial debut with a stop-motion, Miltonesque fever dream that follows an assassin into a labyrinthian city full of monster and creeps.

Piggy

Director: Carlota Pereda
Cast: Laura Galán
Spain/France, 2022
An awkward teenager’s uncomfortable existence of being picked on daily is thrown into ethical turmoil when a mysterious stranger begins to kidnap and kill her bullies in this brutal Spanish morality tale.

Resurrection

Director: Andrew Semans
Cast: Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth
USA, 2022
Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth turn in career defining performances in this blistering tale of a successful business woman whose peaceful and disciplined life with her daughter takes a turn for the very, very dark, when a man carrying the secrets of their past returns to confront her.

Roger Corman, the Pope of Pop Cinema

Director: Bertrand Tessier
Cast: Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Peter Bogdonavich, Ron Howard
France, 2021
Told with all the heart and bluster of one of his own films, this loving documentary about the trailblazer and 2017 Overlook honoree himself bursts with endearing, incredible stories from both on and off set.

Saloum

Director: Jean Luc Herbulot
Cast: Yann Gael, Evelyne Ily Juhen, Roger Sallah, Mentor Ba
Senegal, 2021
When a group of mercenaries transporting both a fugitive and a bounty they stole find themselves stranded in a remote region of Senegal, they begin to realize there a much more potent fears out in the unknown in this action-packed, twisty genre bender.

She Will

Director: Charlotte Colbert
Cast: Alice Krige, Malcolm McDowell, John McCrea, Rupert Everett, Amy Manson, Johnathan Aris, Daniel Lapaine, Kota Eberhardt
UK, 2021
Already garnering awards internationally, this psychological (and often psychedelic), existential horror film follows an aging actress who, having undergone a double mastectomy, journeys to a rural Scottish healing retreat, a place where women were once burned for witchcraft. It is there that she learns the power to enact revenge in her dreams…

Sissy

Directors: Hannah Barlow, Kane Senes
Cast: Aisha Dee, Hannah Barlow, Emily De Margheriti, Daniel Monks, Yerin Ha, Lucy Barrett, Shaun Martindale, Amelia Lule, April Blasdall, Camille Cumpston
Australia, 2022
When successful social media influencer Cecilia gets invited to a destination bachelorette party by her childhood best friend, she finds herself face to face with her high school bully in this grisly, inventive slasher.

The Summoned

World Premiere
Director: Mark Meir
Cast: J. Quinton Johnson, Emma Fitzpatrick, Angela Gulner
USA, 2022
Two high-profile couples learn the true price of success and inheritance when they discover just how exclusive the self-help seminar they’ve attended is in this nasty piece of evil business from newcomer Mark Meir.

Swallowed

World Premiere
Director: Carter Smith
Cast: Cooper Koch, Jose Colon, Jena Malone, Mark Patton
USA, 2022
From Carter Smith, the Director of The Ruins, comes a pulse-pounding tale of two best friends on what might be their final night together. A drug deal gone wrong finds them at the center of a chilling queer body horror full of shocking violations.

Watcher

Director: Chloe Okuno
Cast: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Ciubuciu Bogdan Alexandru
USA, 2022
One of the most exciting new voices in horror this year, Chloe Okuno, makes her solo feature debut with this homage to 70s tales of paranoia about a young woman who moves to foreign country with her fiancée and can’t shake the feeling that she is being constantly monitored by an unseen figure in an adjacent building.

Who Invited Them?

World Premiere
Director: Duncan Birmingham
Cast: Ryan Hansen, Melissa Tang, Timothy Granaderos, Perry Mattfeld
USA, 2022
Reminiscent of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, Duncan Birmingham’s first feature follows a young married couple who, after a successful housewarming party, discover that their charming new neighbors have crashed. Hoping to prove themselves to be hospitable, they keep the drinks flowing, only to realize there might be sinister intent in the air.

Zalava

Director: Arsalan Amiri
Cast: Navid Pourfaraj, Pouria Rahimi Sam, Hoda Zeinolabedin, Baset Rezaei, Fereydoun Hamedi, Shaho Rostami
Iran, 2021
A military official’s skepticism gets a rude awakening when he travels to a rural village reportedly possessed by a demon in this chilling, critically acclaimed Iranian tale of the line between faith and paranoia.