Back from Grimmfest 2026

Greetings from the other side of Grimmfest and I’ve had a fab four days of horror and there were, indeed, some vampire and vampire adjacent films to report back on.

First of all, of course, the festival opened with Horror of Dracula, which looked great in its 4K remaster, and it was brilliant to see on the big screen. The Blu-ray set has been delayed after Hammer discovered a printing error and so it being on was a big bonus.

Under Your Feet

The next film to mention was the Spanish film Under Your Feet, directed by Cristian Bernard. Single mom Isabella (Maribel Verdú) moves into an apartment with her kids, but all is not right. This is a witch orientated film but the three weird sisters feed on the mechanically extracted essence of children and trade with the parents for them, offering property (the apartment) or success in return. The essence offers them youth. Next to mention and vampire adjacent was the film Grind, directed by Ed Dougherty, Brea Grant and Chelsea Stardust. An anthology, it critiques late-stage capitalism. (which is famously vampiric) but in one specific section we meet social media content moderators who are chosen specifically because they’ll react to the content viscerally, which the corporation feeds on.

Motherwitch

One of the highlights of the festival, if not the highlight, was Cypriot folk-horror film Motherwitch, directed by Minos Papas, a film that also explored the historic colonisation and exploitation of Cyprus by the British. Artist Eleni (Margarita Zachariou) loses all three children in a freak accident and decides to bring them back. The medium is through paint, but paint that includes the use of blood and they return as kalikantzari, a creature that does appear in Bane’s Encyclopedia of the vampire. We have met them before (under the variant spelling kallikantzaros) in The Field Guide to Evil, though in that they were more goblin like. In this, however, they feel more revenant – though as violently mischievous as the goblin variety. This was certainly of genre interest, given the inclusion in Bane and the restless dead status, though they do not do anything particularly vampiric.

Ithaqua

Horror of Dracula was not the only Hammer film over the festival and the resurrected company’s new film Ithaqua, by Casey Walker, also showed. Ithaqua of the title, or the wind with teeth, is a Manitou, though the, mercifully brief, CGI for that at the end was poor and marred an otherwise well shot, fun film. However, the film also has wendigo – and these are of the turned human variety. They are drawn much like those in Ravenous being turned humans (though these barely pass) after eating human flesh. Like that, one mouthful consumed is enough to turn – though this has the influence of Ithaqua to thank for that – and they are essentially vampires within a Western winter setting.

The Whisper

The festival opened with a vampire film and ended with one (sort of, the last slot each day had two screenings to choose from, and so it was one of two ending films), The Whisper is a joint Uruguayan/Argentinian production directed by Gustavo Hernández. Lucia (Ana Clara Guanco Aguilera) flees her vampire father Victor (Luciano Cáceres), with her little brother Adrian (Marcelo Michinaux). These are born vampires, who turn when they die, and the intimation is that the curse follows the male line (with Lucia playing clean up for her father before they flee). Unfortunately, near the isolated house they move to (left to her by her mother) is a gang who make snuff movies and so she soon ends up on their radar. The whisper is the ability the vampire has to insinuate themselves into a human’s head and control them. They must kill those they prey on, or they turn into “abominations”, which are feral killing machines and sunlight rules hold. A solid vampire film, it is relentlessly dark, given the human trafficking/snuff storyline.