Spring Wind - Late Spring and Early Summer Horror Events At A Glance

I only recently discussed all the upcoming movie screenings in Berlin, and today Final Girls Berlin announced their spring program under the title "A Night to (dis)member! Underdogs celebration, open air cinema, and more!" so here's a quick addition to that post because guys, it's awesome!

We are starting with Saturday, May 23rd, with the Underdog Marathon where only the hardest amongst you can make a full 12 hours of movie mayhem at Filmrauschpalast, Berlin’s grindhouse cinema par excellence. 

 

Special guests are my awesome co-jurors from B-movie & exploitation festivals Randfest in Kassel, BUT Film Festival in Breda, and B-Retina in Barcelona, and I can't wait to see them again. The lineup is as follows:

14:00: The Rebrand (Dir. Kaye Adelaide, Canada, 2024) - Highly pregnant videographer Nicole is hired by a lesbian influencer couple for a documentary project, but discovers that there are ulterior motives at play. 

16:00 Bad Things (Dir. Stewart Thorndike, USA, 2023) - I hear buzz words like female Jack Torrence, snowy resort and bloody nightmare, and I'm already interested. With a general rating of 3,8 on imdb, I think this might be the lowest rated film I dare watch, but I trust the FGB selection.

18:00: Underdogs Shorts Block

Very excited about this selection curated by Sabina from B-Retina Festival (Barcelona) and Dani from BUT Film Festival (Breda), woohoo!

19:30 Mirror Mirror (Dir. Marina Sergenti, USA, 1990)

90s mirror-controlled-by-demon-haunts-goth-teenage-girl kind of horror movie - a classic.

21:30: A Woman’s Torment (Dir. Roberta Findlay, USA, 1977)

Introduction by Randfilmfest programmer Peter Ahlers

Having read the synopsis for this one, I think it's good to just go in without much background information on what it's about. Just know that it's an X-rated movie and there are warnings of sexual assault and mental illness, so let's see.

23:00: Surprise Movie

A surprise Japanese film, hooray!

0:00: Coven of the Black Cube (Dir. Brewce Longo, USA, 2025)

A heavy metal queer romance cursed by black magic and the occult? Yes! Yes, please!

So, when we recover from the Underdog event, and because it was so good to be at Freilichtbühne Weißensee last year, on Friday June 19th there's yet another open air screening this year too, and it is a compilation of the best folk horror short films shown at the FGB Festival: "A Midsummer's Nightmare - Dark Folk Tales."  

Drum Wave (Australia, 2018); Nian (USA, 2023); Days of Spring (The Netherlands, 2023); Hafermann (Germany, 2025); Heirlooms (Indonesia, 2023); Kill Tradition (Malaysia, 2025); Lok (Bangladesh, 2025); Barlebas (The Netherlands, 2024); Vinegar Baths (Malaysia, 2018).

Mark your calendars for a last event: the 2026 Brain Binge weekend will take place on June 20 & 21 on zoom! 

So, I have been making a comeback to cinemas this week after a fairly quiet winter season, and my new obsession is the "Boulevard Noir" series, for which I will see the neo-noir Mystic River next. This past Thursday I watched the 1944 movie Laura about a policeman falling in love with the portrait of a woman whose death he investigates, and it was delightful! Whoever from Yorck is doing the organization came on stage and gave some information about the movie and that's very neat. He forgot to tell that it's actually based on a novel too, namely Laura by Vera Caspary and I have a hunch many of these noir movies are based on books. Anyways, I will  keep going to these screenings and keep you informed - the auditorium was full by the way, I wasn't expecting it to be this popular.

I also made a comeback to the Creepy Crypt and saw the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 1974 on the big screen this past Saturday for the first time. I really had to take a deep breath when it was over because although I have seen this film a million times, there's something amplifying in seeing a movie on the big screen, and especially a movie that intense... Sigh... Next week, May 2nd, it's another intense movie, Cronenberg's Crash, and I can't wait for it again. I'm also very much hoping that the Sneak Preview on May 9th will be Hokum, I really won't accept any other movie, but realistically, I think it will be Obsession. And that's fine, I would rewatch that.

 

All in all, there are quite a lot of pictures and events to look forward to, it will be a good spring!