From the beginning, Monster Fest has been about more than bringing the wildest, weirdest and most wonderful genre cinema from around the world to Australian screens. Just as important is championing the filmmakers creating that same kind of madness right here at home.
Australian horror has always punched well above its weight, and giving local genre filmmakers a cinema, an audience and the opportunity to unleash their work on the big screen remains an essential part of what Monster Fest is all about.
And this year, our Homegrown Horrors are leading the charge.
Quite literally.
Opening Monster Fest 2026 on Friday October 2 is a Special Advance Screening of Michael Schwarz’s new Australian slasher The Only One, a sharp, bloody tale of coming home, confronting your past and discovering that some old flames never truly go out.
Mel Jarnson (Cammy in the new Street Fighter film) stars as Zoe, a struggling actress who returns from Los Angeles for a friend’s wedding, years after leaving behind her hometown – and an impressive collection of broken hearts – in pursuit of Hollywood stardom. Unfortunately, somebody has decided to start systematically murdering their way through her romantic history, dressed as the demented Prince Charming from the used-car commercial that once made Zoe a minor local celebrity.
The Only One boasts an Australian ensemble including Saphira Moran, Aaron Glenane, John Kim, Lincoln Younes and Sam Delich, and we’ll be celebrating Opening Night in suitably homegrown fashion with director Michael Schwarz, producer John Schwarz, actors Saphira Moran, Aaron Glenane and Lincoln Younes, and writers Martyn Pedler and Marek Polgar joining us at Cinema Nova for a post-screening Q&A.
From an Australian slasher to the end of Australia itself, young filmmakers Matt Michalik and Rupert Evans make their feature debut with Bloodlust, a stripped-back post-apocalyptic revenge film that proves you don’t need a small army and millions of dollars to make something hit hard.
Originally conceived as a ten-minute action short while Michalik and Evans were still at university, Bloodlust grew into a 70-minute feature shot over four months with a crew of just four. The pair wrote, directed, shot and edited the film themselves – while also appearing in front of the camera – to create a lean, brutal tale of grief, revenge and the increasingly blurry line between victim and monster. Following its World Premiere at London’s Raindance Film Festival, Bloodlust comes home for its Australian Premiere at Monster Fest, with a Q&A following the screening.
Then there’s Nancy Nancy, which has taken a particularly long and strange road to Monster Fest.
Twenty years after writer/director Timothy Spanos first unleashed Nancy Nancy in 2006, he has returned to his cult creation and rebuilt it for a new generation. Originally a feature, later re-imagined as a web series and now reconstructed into an entirely new feature film, Nancy Nancy returns with Tim Burns once again embodying its wonderfully unhinged title character. The new incarnation also stars Ryan Heath, Carla Bonner, Zoe Bertram, Kristen Condon and Cameron Nugent.
Set on Warratah Island, the film sees the quiet existence of a reclusive man and his overbearing sister shattered when a mysterious stranger barges into their home, introduces herself as Nancy Nancy and simply refuses to leave. What follows is a surreal and darkly comic exercise in control, humiliation and madness as their unwanted houseguest bends the siblings to her increasingly bizarre will.
Twenty years after the original, Monster Fest is thrilled to host the World Premiere of this newly resurrected Nancy Nancy.
Our Monster Fest even extend all the way to the streets of Paris with I Love Paris, the gloriously scrappy vampire mockumentary from Australian filmmaker Nicky Murphy.
Based between Melbourne and Paris, Murphy shot I Love Paris guerrilla-style on the streets of the French capital, following aspiring singer Paris and her accidental vampire mother Lutèce as bloodsucking becomes yet another tool in their increasingly chaotic pursuit of fame. Made without a traditional crew or budget, it’s an Australian/French production with a distinctly homegrown independent spirit.
And apparently that spirit travels well. I Love Paris had its World Premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival earlier this year and walked away with the Gold Audience Award for Best International Feature. Now it’s coming home for its Australian Premiere at Monster Fest.
For an Australian production considerably further from home, we’re heading to Ghana with Trasharama Presents: The Taller They Come, the latest cinematic expedition into glorious madness from Australian filmmaker, Trash Video founder and The Search For Weng Weng director Andrew Leavold.
Leavold stars as Alby Wrangler, a wannabe exploitation auteur who arrives in Ghana and cons his way onto real-life filmmaker Samuel “Ninja” Nkansah’s kung-fu remake of the Jamaican reggae spaghetti western The Harder They Come – starring little people. From there, things go about as smoothly as you’d expect.
Part mockumentary, part action-film parody and part film-within-a-film, Trasharama Presents: The Taller They Come is a gonzo celebration of low-budget filmmaking, artistic obsession and the kind of questionable decision-making that we at Monster Fest can only wholeheartedly endorse. Leavold will join us at Cinema Nova for the film’s Victorian Premiere and a post-screening Q&A.
And our Australian contingent isn’t confined to feature films.
We’re also bringing a brand-new Australian horror-comedy to the cinema screen with Gnomes – The Garden Has Gone To Hell, a special preview of the first two episodes of the new Stan Original series starring Asa Butterfield, Tess Haubrich and Megan Smart.
Set in a fading country town preparing for its inaugural Gnome-a-Palooza, Gnomes – The Garden Has Gone To Hell sees an ancient evil bring the local garden-gnome population to murderous life, leaving two estranged police officers and a collection of locals facing a full-blown Gnome-apocalypse. Following the screening, creator and producer Joel Kohn, producers Richard Kelly and John Molloy, and writers Tegan Higginbotham and Paul F. Verhoeven will join us for a Q&A about bringing Australia’s newest miniature monsters to life.
And while Godmother may have been made in the United States, we’re claiming at least a little piece of it for the Homegrown Horrors family.
The Australian Premiere of John Veron’s desert-set Satanic horror was co-written and produced by Queensland-born gaming personality Alanah Pearce, who will be joining us at Monster Fest to present the film and take part in a post-screening Q&A. Starring Paige Evans, Cameron Cuffe and Riley Dandy alongside horror royalty Dee Wallace and Bruce Davison,Godmother follows a romantic desert getaway that takes a deeply unholy turn when a group of seemingly friendly retirees develop an unhealthy interest in their young and fertile new neighbours.
From filmmakers mounting their first feature with a four-person crew to established Australian creators working overseas, cult characters being resurrected after twenty years, murderous garden ornaments and an Australian slasher taking pride of place on Opening Night, Homegrown Horrors represents exactly why supporting Australian genre filmmaking remains such an important part of Monster Fest.
Because Australian filmmakers have never needed any help getting weird.
Sometimes they just need a big screen.
Monster Fest 2026 runs October 2-10 at Cinema Nova, Melbourne. Details here.
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