Carrie, Giant Snakes, and Sentient Sludge: Fantastic Fest 2026

Horror fans, your calendar just got a lot busier. The 21st annual Fantastic Fest runs September 17–24 in Austin, Texas — home of the Alamo Drafthouse — and this year's lineup is genuinely stacked with genre gold.

With 35 world premieres, 21 international and North American premieres, and 14 U.S. premieres crammed into eight days, Fantastic Fest 2026 is shaping up to be the most anticipated horror week of the fall season. Here's everything you need to know.

Opening Night: Beware Boiúna

The festival kicks off with the world premiere of Beware Boiúna, a Lionsgate creature feature from director Mike P. Nelson (Silent Night, Deadly Night). The film follows a group of medical volunteers whose expedition into the Amazon goes badly wrong when they cross paths with Boiúna — the legendary giant serpent said to rule the rivers of Brazilian mythology.

Starring Kiana Madeira, Jessica Rothe, and Logan Marshall-Green, Beware Boiúna promises practical creature carnage wrapped in lush jungle atmosphere. If Nelson's track record holds, this is one to see on a big screen with a packed crowd.

Victorian Psycho: Maika Monroe Goes Full Gothic

Perhaps the most buzzed-about horror title in the lineup is Victorian Psycho (Bleecker Street), making its North American premiere. Maika Monroe — who has quietly become one of the genre's most compelling performers since It Follows — plays a governess who arrives at a remote gothic manor and proceeds to make everyone's lives very, very difficult.

The setup sounds deceptively simple. Period-set, slow-burn, and reportedly deeply unsettling, Victorian Psycho is exactly the kind of film Fantastic Fest was built to champion before the mainstream catches on.

Mike Flanagan's Carrie Gets Its U.S. Debut

Mike Flanagan is back, and this time he's taken on Stephen King's original nightmare: Carrie. The eight-episode Prime Video series gets its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest ahead of its October 7 streaming debut — making Austin the first American audience to see Flanagan's updated take on the 1974 novel.

The modern retelling stars Summer H. Howell as Carrie White and Samantha Sloyan as her zealot mother Margaret. The series updates the bullying for the social media age, which sounds either inspired or harrowing — possibly both. Matthew Lillard also has a role, and if you're not at least a little curious, you haven't been paying attention.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil Comes to Austin

Ahead of its September 18 wide release, Resident Evil from director Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons) gets a special screening at the festival. Cregger has earned the trust of the horror community, and early projections suggest this could be the biggest horror opening of 2026. Fantastic Fest attendees get to see it a full day before the rest of the world — and in arguably the best possible audience on earth for it.

Closing Night: The Swallow

Closing out the festival is The Swallow, directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer (Starry Eyes, Firestarter) and starring Grace Van Dien (Stranger Things). The premise is a thing of sticky nightmare beauty: a group of teenagers break into a fenced-off stretch of forest and find themselves terrorized by a quicksand-like sentient sludge that does exactly what you'd fear sentient sludge might do.

This is Kölsch and Widmyer returning to practical-effects-driven indie horror — exactly what they do best.

Other Titles Worth Watching

The full lineup also includes Wild Horse Nine from playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, The Banshees of Inisherin), River (previously seen at TIFF), and a long-overdue tribute to action director Walter Hill. World and international premieres from across the globe fill the rest of the eight-day slate.

How to Watch

Fantastic Fest takes place exclusively at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas, September 17–24. Most films will receive wider releases in the weeks and months that follow. Keep an eye on the titles that make waves in Austin — they tend to define the genre conversation all the way through awards season.

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