“Why horror? What is the point of horror? Isn’t it enough, and too much, in ‘real life’? In the daily newspapers: in the crime reports, in the economy, in politics… in obituaries? All we need now is to be scared by some movies!” That’s how laypeople and horror amateurs think. Those who shut their eyes to it, flee from it, or at least think they can escape it, turning their backs while embracing romantic comedies, dramas, thrillers, science fiction. They don’t know that the most dangerous thing is to turn your back on the horror. No, the horror of so‑called real life must be kept under watch. Face it. Fight it. Exorcise it. Or, if that proves impossible, find some mode of “coexistence” with it. But only after it has been recognized — and met. Horror films can be a way to do that. Good, artistic horror films are not escapist: they are a form of opening our eyes to the horrors of our existence, not only social, but also psychological, spiritual, metaphysical. The festival of artistic horror films is an attempt to separate confrontational horror films from escapist horror films and present them to an audience that wouldn’t otherwise be aware of them, because they would fly under the radar, overshadowed by those horrors that are marketed louder and more prominently on the entertainment market. Come to the slaughterhouse — not to celebrate blood, evil and death but, on the contrary, life. Come to a place soaked in death, transformed into a place of life. Help ensure that the attempt to revive something dead is not a futile experiment doomed to failure and oblivion, but the beginning of something truly new and worthwhile. Open your eyes to the horror, surrender to it, relax, have fun, accept it like a vaccine, in small, safe doses, in controlled conditions, so you can develop immunity to the Horror that awaits you outside the gates of this Slaughterhouse. Dejan Ognjanović, Slaughter Festival Program Director