WELCOME TO THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE 2025 - Opening Words by the Program Director
And here it is – the fourth blood-drenched edition of Slaughter Festival, your ultimate fix of great horror and heavy metal! As the old saying goes, “Not every day is a holiday,” so not every year brings a new The Substance – our trademark spectacular horror exclusive. This time, instead of one overhyped headline-grabber, we’re serving you a batch of excellent, under-the-radar horror flicks and horror-adjacent gems. Just because they didn’t win the Palme d’Or doesn’t mean they haven’t slayed at genre festivals around the globe.
Take, for instance, CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING (MOTORNE TESTERE PEVALE) – a brutal horror-comedy from Estonia (!) that already tore through festivals like Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, Monster Fest, and Fright Nights. Pure carnage, tailor-made for gorehounds and metalheads alike! Or the revelation from Latvia (!), DOG OF GOD (PAS BOŽJI), a stunning animated descent into black magic, the Dark Ages, folk horror, and Satan himself! Created by the same animation team behind the Oscar-winning FLOW, but this one is definitely not for kids – it’s made for horror freaks and metal maniacs.
And let’s not forget our old friend Norbert Fafenbihler, the first-ever Golden Sledgehammer (Zlatna Macola) winner for 2551.01: THE KID. Loyal attendees of the old Slaughterhouse will remember the second part of his twisted trilogy, 2551.02: THE ORGY OF THE DAMNED. Well – guess what? Norbert has finished the trilogy! The final chapter, aptly titled THE END, will have one of its world premieres right here at Slaughter Festival – screened together with the previous two parts, for those who missed them, or want to relive the madness.
Domestic horror output has been a bit thinner this year – at least when it comes to feature-length films. We’ll have just one mid-length, low-fi Serbian production: DARTAKUM, straight from Zrenjanin (which inspired this year’s “HORROR – DIY” panel). But when it comes to Serbian short horror – there’s both quantity and quality. Something tells me this year’s fight for the Golden Sledgehammer will be bloody. Let’s just hope the blood stays where it belongs – on the screen.
FILMS IN COMPETITION FOR THE FESTIVAL AWARD – THE GOLDEN SLEDGEHAMMER
THE LOTTERY (2023)
(Mexico)
Valentina visits a local fair and enters a world of unsettling mysteries. There, she plays the Lottery game – but this is no ordinary draw. This anthology horror film weaves together chilling tales steeped in Mexican folklore and dark traditions.
Director: Vadir Sotelo
Explore: HERE
TELEPATHIC LETTERS (2024)
(Portugal)
An artistic, experimental film-essay exploring two iconic dark visionaries of the 20th century: Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa and cult horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. This hallucinatory, visionary work is filled with fantastical and grotesque imagery, entirely generated through artificial intelligence.
Director: Edgar Pera
Explore: HERE
DOG OF GOD (2025)
(Latvia)
In the Middle Ages, a village is shrouded in autumn rain. A holy relic is stolen, unleashing a whirlwind of feverish passions, witchcraft, magic, and aphrodisiacs-alongside a mysterious man who possesses Satan’s severed testicles. Rotoscope animation by the creators of FLOW, with a true heavy metal vibe. Not for children!
Director: Lauris & Raitis Abele
Explore: HERE
2551.03: THE END (2025)
(Austria)
The final chapter in the masked man’s quest through a grotesque apocalyptic underworld and Hell itself, searching for his adopted child, now in the clutches of monstrous villains.
Director: Norbert Fafenbihler
Explore: HERE
CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING (2024)
(Estonia)
Two lovers are torn apart by a chainsaw-wielding maniac. What follows is a completely deranged epic horror-comedy musical, described as Monty Python meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. A modern cult film shot over 10 grueling years!
Director: Sander Maran
Explore: HERE
SHORT SERBIAN FILMS IN COMPETITION FOR THE FESTIVAL AWARD – THE GOLDEN SLEDGEHAMMER
The thrilling opening to what might’ve been Serbia’s best slasher franchise.
Director: Zlatko Milošev
Johnny Racković, a Belgrade writer and artist, transforms into a hellish animated hero after losing his mother—and nearly his own life. But as he grasps the rules of his metamorphosis, the perspective shifts, revealing a looming global plague… and his role in it.
Director: Aleksa Gajić
A director scouts locations for a horror film, hiring desperate extras for easy money. (Shot in 2017, screened only at Noći Ludaje 2023. Edited posthumously after the lead actor’s death -technically unfinished, but masterfully assembled.)
Director: Zlatko Milošev
A journalist hunting for a scoop stumbles upon the legend of Crnoslovlje – a burned heretical book written by Ex-Priest Jefrem during WWII.
Director: Zlatko Milošev
Three subjects participate in an illegal medical trial, forced to remain motionless as the experimental drug *BVX-29* takes effect.
Director: Goran Jovanović
A hilltop house, seemingly ordinary, hides a dark secret. After realizing she recognizes the house, the protagonist visits to uncover the truth.
Director: Aleksa Damjanović
Urbanites unmoored from nature begin to feel an unease – is it fear of the dark, or of the unseen wilderness we’ve destroyed? The film’s atmosphere strips away boundaries between external terror and internal dread, drowning the viewer in alienation.
Director: Milan Milosavljević
The end of the world came quietly. Civilisation is no more. One man, after many years of roaming, comes back to his birth town to find a long-lost boy.
Director: Branislav Čeman
GUESTS OF THE FESTIVAL & JURY MEMBERS
Arpad Slančik
Artist, born in 1974, in Essen, Germany. In his early youth he moved to Subotica, Serbia, where he still lives and creates. His urban sculptures represent a dark industrial style. His audience and target group is into piercings and tattoos. The message of his sculptures is the problem of modern man: the helplessness, suffering and pain with no way out, no hope! He had numerous exhibitions in the country and abroad (e.g. Grossmann Festival in Slovenia). In Berlin in 2017 he exhibited together with H.R. Giger at a collective exhibition. The Serbian audience got to know him at the “9evet” festival in Belgrade.
dr Marko Pišev
Writer and lecturer from the Ethnology and Anthropology department at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. Marko Pišev was born in 1984 in Celje, Slovenia. He received his PhD from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, where he works as an associate professor, senior research associate. He published a collection of horror stories Photophobia (2009). He edited a special issue devoted to “Anthropology of Horror” for the academic journal EAP (Ethno-Anthropological Problems, 2016) and published several scientific papers on the topic of horror in domestic and foreign journals and anthologies.
Jovan Ristić
Co-originator and main programmer of the Festival of Serbian Fantastic Film and co-author of the book Lost Worlds of Serbian Fantasy Film. Jovan Ristić (1973, Belgrade) is a lawyer, longtime journalist, writer and translator. He is the co-founder of the traveling Festival of Serbian Fantastic Film, the first festival of genre film in Serbia. He is author of historiographical books on film, and he collected stories, short stories and poems that have been published in various publications and anthologies in the collection Years in the Mist (2010). The title story from this collection is represented in the anthology Nova srpska pripovetka (2014). The novella “HAARP and other stories”, the title in the thematic collection HAARP and other stories about conspiracy theories (2014) is the basis of his first novel Flooded Mind (2022).
#DISCUSSION: „HORROR DIY”
HORROR DIY:
Self-Publishing, Fanzines & Guerrilla Filmmaking in Serbia
Date: Saturday, July 5th
Location: “Deli” Space, Niš (near the Synagogue)
When there’s no established tradition or genre industry, creators forge their own path. This panel explores the raw world of Serbian horror through self-published books (samizdat), handmade zines, and no-budget filmmaking – with those who live the DIY ethos.
Participants:
– Jovan Ristić (Co-founder, Serbian Fantasy Film Festival | Co-author Lost Worlds of Serbian Fantasy Cinema)
– Marko Pišev (Writer, Emitor zine alumnus)
– Milan Kovačević (Editor of Crnoslovlje horror zine)
– Moderator: Dejan Ognjanović, Slaughter Festival Program Director & Founder of Ghoul Press self-publishing
Special Screenings: 2025 SLAUGHTER FESTIVAL PROGRAM
DARTAKUM (2025)
(Serbia)
A Kosovo and Metohija War veteran, has battled PTSD – but one night, it all comes rushing back. Yet, the horrors he faces make him question: Is it just the syndrome, or is something else at play?
Starring: Milan Trifunović, Nikolina Pavkov, Aleksandra Bernhard.
Written & Directed by: Gvozden Bosić
THE CELLAR (2025)
(UK)
A young woman wakes up trapped underground with amnesia. She must escape, unravel the mystery of her captivity, and confront her inner demons. A tense survival story about truth and psychological turmoil.
Director: Jamie David Langlands
2551.01: THE KID (2021)
(Austria)
A man rescues a boy from violence, and together they wander a nightmarish underground realm inhabited by grotesque masked figures. An experimental punk reinterpretation of Chaplin’s The Kid (1921) in the style of Lynch’s Eraserhead, dubbed by its creator as a “dystopian slapstick”. Winner of the New Visions Award at Spain’s prestigious Sitges Film Festival.
Director: Norbert Fafenbihler
2551.02: THE ORGY OF THE DAMNED (2023)
(Austria)
The mad saga continues as the monkey-masked man drifts through a garden of torture and deviant pleasures. The second part of the planned trilogy picks up right where 2551.01: THE KID left off – though you needn’t have seen the first to be enthralled. Especially if you crave extreme violence, sick sex, and black humor. A darker, more shocking descent into David Lynchian nightmares.
Director: Norbert Fafenbihler
The Conclave of Shadows (2022)
(Argentina)
A secret occult gathering is interrupted by a cryptic warning: their order has located the fabled Crown of the Sun. Their mission? To trigger the apocalypse. A cosmic horror about the end of days.
Director: Leandro Bartoleti
BAKEMONO (2023)
(Japan)
Multiple guests rent the same cheap Tokyo Airbnb at different times, unaware of the bloodthirsty, inhuman entity waiting for them.
Director: Dag Rus
MIROSLAV LAKOBRIJA’S SHORT FILMS
A selection of 13 trash-horror shorts by Serbia’s legendary makeup effects master: a riot of bad taste, gore, and pitch-black humor. Screening:
- Patient [1997]
- Patient 2
- Return of the Patient [1999]
- Patient 3 [2000]
- Patient 4 [2001]
- Patient 0 [2006]
- They Are [2001]
- Tunnel of Death [2002]
- Miki Ex Machina [2003]
- Über Soldat [2005]
- Cannibal Hotel [2007]
- The Predator [2007]
- The Last Drop [2011-2013].
SELECTION OF THE BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT HORRORS FROM GROSSMANN 2024
How to get to the Slaughter Festival