Welcome to the fourth annual Anomaly - The Rochester Genre Film Festival, this year featuring 13 programs containing 12 feature films and 25 short films of the best genre cinema from around the world! Join us November 3-6, 2022 at The Little Theatre in downtown Rochester, NY for a ghoulishly good time!
All Film Screenings Take Place at: The Little Theatre (Theatre 1): 240 East Ave, Rochester, NY 14604
Tickets: $12 General Admission • $15 “Friday the 13th: Part III” 3D on 35mm
Full Festival Passes: $95 “Early Ghoul” (price will increase before the festival!)
Discounts available for students and seniors.
Click/tap a poster to jump to a film program. • Scroll down for full list of films.
Jump to a day: THURSDAY 11/3 • FRIDAY 11/4 • SATURDAY 11/5 • SUNDAY 11/6
Full Festival Passholders: Pass Pickup & Reception
5:00-5:45pm (directly preceding Something in the Dirt)
Location: The Little Theatre (Theatre 1 Lobby)
Come pickup (and decorate!) your pass, mingle with your fellow film-buffs, and enjoy light refreshments before we kickoff opening night! (Passes can still be picked up all festival long.)
Something in the Dirt
A scintillating sci-fi journey of reality refraction and personal reflection.
John and Levi are new neighbors in a crumbling Los Angeles apartment complex who become tangled together when they witness an inexplicable phenomenon of light and sound one afternoon. Deciding to document the strange event for posterity — and perhaps fame and fortune — the two men soon fall head first into ever-evolving conspiracy theories, twisting rabbit holes, and the impossible trick of giving meaning to the (maybe) meaningless. What happens when selling a mystery becomes more important than being a friend?
The latest indie sci-fi mind-bender from Benson and Moorhead, the filmmakers behind The Endless and Marvel’s Loki season 2. More details & tickets
USA / 2022 / 115 mins
Content Warnings: animal remains, mental health distress
PRECEDED BY
Slurp
Always be on your best behavior when you're on a first date. Especially if you're going to the movies.
USA / 2021 / 11 mins
Content Warnings: sexism, blood, violence, gore
Friday the 13th: Part III 3D
An eye-popping 3D presentation of a slasher classic on 35mm film.
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Friday the 13th: Part III with a rare 35mm showing using modern chromatic 3D technology! Jason Voorhees is back for more murder and mayhem, setting his sights on a brand-new group of horned up teenagers and the unruly biker gang they cross paths with. Learn how Jason got his mask! Marvel at the cheap 3D tricks! Boogie to the groovy disco theme song! More details & tickets
Co-Presented with our friends at Saturday Night Rewind and Fright-Rags
USA / 1982 / 95 mins
Content Warnings: blood, violence, gore, drug use, nudity, sex, racist micro-aggression
PRECEDED BY
Blossom and the Decrepit Man
Blossom wakes up in the woods tied to a tree, and something is ticking...
USA / 2021 / 3 mins
Content Warnings: abduction, violence
Skinamarink
An experimental-horror, waking-nightmare that watches you as you watch it.
Have you ever woken up dazed in the middle of the night, and while squinting at a shadow you’re suddenly paralyzed with fear? Skinamarink is the cinematic bottling of that unknowing, creeping terror that something is there, in the room with you, watching you from the dark.
The premise — two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished — does not convey the extremely-experimental production. With few humans, murky subtitles, and images primarily of ceiling corners, flickering Fleischer cartoons, and dark doorways, Skinamarink demands your full attention and patience. But if you fully give yourself over to its hazy, static-filled disorientation, Skinamarink may absolutely terrify you. More details & tickets
Canada / 2022 / 100 mins
Content Warnings: jump scares, child endangerment and abandonment, blood, flickering and strobing lights
PRECEDED BY
Stuck
Sophia is a fearful young woman who accidentally lets a demonic entity loose while moving to her new house.
Italy / 2022 / 9 mins
Content Warnings: blood
Huesera
A horror fable of the bone-breaking anxieties of modern motherhood.
Pregnant with her first child, Valeria is expecting to feel the excitement and joy that everyone tells her comes with becoming a new mother. But she doesn’t. Instead, she feels nothing but an ever-growing sense of dread. Seeking an explanation for these emotions - and the horrifying visions that have begun creeping into her daily life - she returns to her punk rock past and reconnects with the woman who was her first love, in an attempt to find answers. But what she discovers may not provide any reassurances. More details & tickets
Mexico & Peru / 2022 / 93 mins
In Spanish with English subtitles
Content Warnings: flashing lights, pregnancy/childbirth, child abuse, blood, gore, attempted suicide, body horror, emotional family trauma, animal death
PRECEDED BY
Deliver
A young woman working as a surrogate at an upscale, remote facility uncovers a sinister truth hiding behind an idyllic façade.
USA / 2022 / 13 mins
Content Warnings: blood, implied lost pregnancy, implied newborn sacrifice
HeBGB TV
A phantasmagoric wacky ode to late-night TV.
A mysterious and strangely sinister TV cable box is taking the nation by storm, installing itself and infiltrating households seemingly all on its own. And what it’s transmitting to all those unsuspecting viewers is something truly twisted. This spooky, goofy anthology is imbued with a love of late-night ‘90s television, offering up a channel-surfing world of tall tales, lewd puppets, buckets of blood, bizarrely catchy jingles, and plenty of horror goo, all hand-crafted with a high camp bent. Sit back, relax, and give yourself over to the power of HeBGB TV. More details & tickets
USA / 2022 / 78 mins
Content Warnings: flashing lights, blood, gore, drugs, eating disorder
PRECEDED BY
Meat Friend
When a child microwaves raw hamburger meat, it comes to life and teaches inappropriate lessons rooted in a life of crime.
USA / 2022 / 8 mins
Content Warnings: animal death, drug use
Surreal & Spooky Saturday Shorts
Strange, unsettling, and sometimes even touching bite-sized tales from around the globe.
(12 short films•109 mins) More details & tickets
Welcome
A lonely girl is invited into a luxury clothing store by its mannequins, at midnight, offering her everything she's ever wanted.
USA / 2022 / 3 mins
Ruta (Highway)
In a small quiet town, a group of friends arranges to meet up at the local gas station but for some strange reason, they can't find each other.
Argentina / 2021 / 7 mins
In Spanish with English subtitles
Content Warnings: death
UPYA
In life, we only regret what we haven’t done…
France / 2021 / 3 mins
Content Warnings: suicide
O
Jasmin discovers a fist-sized hole in a house wall, and can think of nothing else... until the hole suddenly disappears without a trace...
Germany / 2022 / 14 mins
Content Warnings: blood, gore, self-harm, suicide, body horror
They See You
A woman shares an important find with her sister.
USA / 2022 / 10 mins
Content Warnings: mental illness, gore, animal death
Shut
Jonas visits his father Arend after a long time. Jonas is startled when his father is almost unrecognizable. Has he deteriorated badly or has something taken possession of him?
Netherlands / 2022 / 15 mins
In Dutch with English subtitles
Content Warnings: body horror, violence, death
Limelight
A game show host goes through an existential crisis.
USA / 2021 / 5 mins
Content Warnings: flashing lights
MeTube 3: August Sings "Una furtiva lagrima"
Swiss tenor August Schram is located in an opera house during a performance of Donizetti's humorous melodrama "L'elisir d'amore," and furnished with a memorable cast of characters.
Austria / 2020 / 10 mins
In German with English subtitles
Content Warnings: sexual assault
Break Any Spell
A teenage girl escapes reality through live action role-playing when her mother is suffering an illness, which will soon reach a breaking point.
Ireland / 2021 / 13 mins
Content Warnings: dementia, family trauma
What A Harvest
A father trying to connect with his video game-obsessed daughter learns she hasn’t been eating his lovingly prepared meals.
USA / 2021 / 15 mins
Content Warnings: violence
Every Time We Meet for Ice Cream Your Whole F*cking Face Explodes
Ethan is in love with the weird girl in school. The one with the twitchy eyes and spiders in her hair. The one who can't sit still for even a minute and speaks in an odd squeaky voice. The one they call Spiderweb.
USA / 2021 / 7 mins
Content Warnings: violence, blood
The Unusualist
The Unusualist collects and curates first-hand stories of real people who encountered the uncanny, and presents the astounding tales they've lived to tell.
USA / 2022 / 10 mins
The Antares Paradox
A soulful sci-fi, searching for species, socially, and scattered in the stars.
SETI scientist Alexandra has devoted her life to the search for extraterrestrial life. Tonight it appears she’s made an incredible discovery that could be the culmination of everything she’s been working for. Then she receives some dire news from a loved one, and suddenly Alexandra finds herself torn between her work and the family who needs her. Straddling the line between science fiction and drama, THE ANTARES PARADOX is a tense and emotional single location thriller that asks viewers to consider what’s truly important to us, and what we’d be willing to sacrifice for our dreams. More details & tickets
Spain / 2022 / 96 mins
In Spanish with English subtitles
Content Warnings: flashing lights, blood, death, family trauma
PRECEDED BY
Freelance
When a down-on-her-luck video editor accepts a mysterious offer to edit snuff films, she finds herself haunted by the victim in the footage.
USA / 2022 / 20 mins
Content Warnings: assault, murder, stalking, fat-phobia, death
Living with Chucky
An inside-the-doll documentary at what makes a horror franchise tick.
By far the horror franchise that’s shown the most creativity and willingness to shake things up over the years, the Child’s Play series has maintained a consistent ability to entertain, surprise, and horrify for more than three decades. But what’s given these films (seven and counting, plus a recent TV series) their biting humor and satisfying bloodlust? The answer lies within. More details & tickets
Featuring interviews with Chucky mastermind Don Mancini, Brad Dourif, the incomparable Jennifer Tilly, and many of the special effects artists, fans, and filmmakers who’ve built their careers from the antics of a wise-cracking killer doll, Living With Chucky pays affectionate tribute to a horror icon and the people who delight in every moment of bringing him to life.
USA / 2022 / 105 mins
Content Warnings: blood, violence, gore, mental illness
PRECEDED BY
The Fuzzies
A man wakes up locked in a strange bathroom where something... fuzzy... is lurking behind the walls.
USA / 2021 / 8 mins
Content Warnings: violence
Satanic Hispanics
A rip-roaring collection of Latin American scary stories by five indie-horror filmmakers.
At the scene of a shockingly grisly massacre, the authorities find a lone survivor - a man who calls himself The Traveler. Trying to unravel the truth, two cops interrogate this mysterious man, and begin to learn much, much more than they were ever prepared to. What follows is a series of stories involving opening a door that should’ve remained closed, a vampire’s perilous night out, the bloody retribution of an unknowable ancient power, and the adventures of a demon hunter and his “very special” weapon.
Deeply inspired by Latin American folklore and legend, the five twisted tales in this horror anthology run the gamut from visceral gore to unexpected hilarity, so buckle up and be prepared for anything… More details & tickets
USA / 2022 / 112 mins
In English and Spanish with some English subtitles
Content Warnings: blood, violence, self-harm, gore, flashing lights, body horror, death
PRECEDED BY
Lethalogica
Relationships can be killer. Guy and Marjorie navigate the all too common problem in relationships that always begins with, "What did you say?"
USA / 2022 / 5 mins
Content Warnings: torture, blood, gore
The Jessica Cabin
A queer, bittersweet ghost story about the complicated search for true connection
One cabin. Four people. But two of them are dead… and desperately trying to connect with their living visitors. Trapped for an uncertain amount of time in this small, isolated box — these restless spirits soon make some unfortunate decisions in their quest to feel something one more time. At times darkly amusing, while at other times deeply heartbreaking, this story of love and loss is a poignant but ultimately hopeful vision of learning to let go, no matter how frightening that might seem in the moment. More details & tickets
USA / 2022 / 73 mins
Content Warnings: suicide
PRECEDED BY
Dead End
Nick is trying to escape from the house of his spiritually abusive boyfriend, who is heavily into bizarre religious practices. The only way to freedom is murder.
Russia / 2022 / 19 mins
In Russian with English subtitles
Content Warnings: murder, blood, homophobic slurs
A serpentine spy mystery with accelerating shocks and gut punch reveals
Two men with a dark history together, one the Foreign Unit chief and the other the Domestic Unit chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, are tasked with discovering a North Korean mole during a particularly dangerous time of tension between both countries during the 1980s. Soon they find themselves ordered to investigate each other, uncovering dark truths and testing the limits of their own moral codes — all while trying to navigate a constantly twisting and turning series of discoveries and betrayals. This espionage action thriller never lets up for a moment, and keeps on shocking until the very last frame with the very simple question… “Who can you trust?” More details & tickets
South Korea / 2022 / 125 mins
In Korean with English subtitles
Content Warnings: graphic torture, nudity, gun violence
PRECEDED BY
The Nick
The character finds themselves in a death struggle with a wicked and evil part of their own body.
Australia / 2020 / 5 mins
Content Warnings: body horror, blood
The Harbinger
A creeping supernatural horror blending lucid dreamscapes and isolated reality.
Monique ventures out of her family’s quarantine bubble to answer a desperate call from an old friend who’s being tormented by disturbing nightmares featuring a plague mask-wearing demon. But by rushing to her friend’s aid, Monique quickly learns that some dreams can be contagious. And sometimes those dreams refuse to remain only in the subconscious. Filmed in nearby Binghamton, The Harbinger is a resonant and deeply terrifying story about the things we hope (and sometimes fear) will be left behind when we’re gone. More details & tickets
USA / 2022 / 90 mins
Content Warnings: blood, attempted suicide, pandemic isolation, child death, self-harm
PRECEDED BY
Familiar
In 1942, Richard Mason is the Familiar to an ancient vampiric creature, living in the bowels of an old mansion. In order to survive physical and mental abuse, Mason must bring it victims to feed on.
United Kingdom / 2021 / 10 mins
Content Warnings: blood, gore, death
Leonor Will Never Die
A meta action-fantasy of fists and finding fulfillment.
Retired filmmaker Leonor made a living writing gritty Filipino action flicks throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, but lately she’s struggling to make ends meet. And her exasperated son no longer knows what to do with her. But when she’s conked on the head by a falling television and slips into a coma, Leonor suddenly finds herself lost inside the violent world of one of her unfinished screenplays. Fantasy and reality blur in increasingly outlandish ways as Leonor joins her fist-fighting hero on his quest for revenge against those who wronged him, while back in the more mundane real world her son rallies the family by her side.
A sweet and comically surreal love letter to genre cinema, and the power of the movies to help us cope with whatever hardships life may throw at us. More details & tickets
Philippines / 2022 / 99 mins
In Filipino with English subtitles
Content Warnings: violence, gun violence, blood, death, family hospitalization
PRECEDED BY
Reuben the Roller Roo
A roller rink employee struggles to balance his love of entertaining children with the dangerous drug dealing he's doing on the side.
USA / 2022 / 13 mins
Content Warnings: violence, drugs
Closing Night Pizza Party
9:00-10:00pm (approx.; directly following Leonor Will Never Die)
Location: The Little Theatre (Theatre 1 Lobby)
Our newest tradition, following its success in 2021! Following our Closing Night Film, stick around for a free, laid-back pizza party celebrating the conclusion of this year's festival! Open to all ticket-holders of Leonor Will Never Die and all Festival Passholders.
