Fifty years of horror

It all started with an eye. A strange eye on a poster, haunting the streets of Barcelona. The year was 1970, and Spain was under General Francisco Franco’s control. Superstition and fantasy were firmly discouraged, and yet here was a poster announcing a ‘semana de terror’ (‘week of horror’) in the quiet seaside town of Sitges.

The Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantástic i de Terror was then a modest event with a handful of low-key screenings held at the town’s only cinema, the Retiro. But in 1971, the festival’s headline film was The Abominable Dr. Phibes, starring Vincent Price, who was already a horror legend at the time. Price was awarded Best Actor that year, which was publicised internationally, but the twisted story of revenge received even more attention for another reason: a local woman supposedly fainted from fright at the first screening. From that moment on, the Sitges festival was the place to go for horror.

The film festival’s notoriety was cemented in the national psyche a few years later, when a Spanish news programme reporting on the festival accidentally aired the wrong, and extremely gory, clip from one of the scheduled films during a lunchtime broadcast. But while some complained, the blood-filled teaser left many wanting more.

Despite these ‘scandals’, the festival was deemed significantly important to local culture by the Catalan government, and was awarded substantial funding grants in the late Seventies. In 1983, ‘terror’ was removed from the festival’s title and strands of other genres were added to broaden its appeal. That, however, didn’t change Sitges’ reputation as a horror haven: that year, the best actor award went to Vincent Price once again.

In 1992, the Sitges Film Festival had a further image change when it got a new logo. The massive form of King Kong, swatting away planes and splashing through the Mediterranean towards the town, was to grace festival posters and programmes for years to come. The giant ape’s target, the beautiful seaside church of San Bartolomé y Santa Tecla, has also become synonymous with the festival’s image; in recent years both a flaming baby carriage and a slew of alien eggs have shown up on the steps of the building in the festival’s posters.

Aside from promotion, Sitges has always been skilled in nurturing emerging horror filmmakers. In 1993, the festival hosted the debut feature from a young Mexican director, Guillermo Del Toro. A unique and imaginative take on the vampire myth Cronos (1993) wowed the festival that year, winning Del Toro the screenwriting award. He has gone on to become a multiple Oscar-winner for Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and one of the most celebrated Spanish-language filmmakers in the world. The work of Barcelona’s very own Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza had been shown at the festival long before the Rec series (2007-2014) took the world by storm; Balagueró won Best Short Film for his debut, Alicia, back in 1994. This year both Balagueró—with new horror Muse (2017)—and Del Toro return to Sitges; the latter will open the festival with The Shape of Water (2017).

The enthusiasm among festival organisers and horror fans in Sitges inspires loyalty from its famous guests. Hollywood actors, such as The Lord of the Rings alumni Viggo Mortensen and Elijah Wood, are regular attendees at the festival, as well as acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino. The Spider-Man trilogy (2002-2007) director, Sam Raimi, summed up the appeal of Sitges when talking about his debut film, cult shocker The Evil Dead (1981): “Sitges played an important role in helping our little-known, independent movie find an audience. The Sitges Film Festival has the best horror film lovers in the world!”

This year’s festival runs from October 5th to the 15th and will include hundreds of horror, fantasy, animation and documentary screenings, as well as themed events, such as the annual Sitges Zombie Walk on October 7th. Tickets and the full programme are available online.