The Fantastic Pavilion presents a weekly recap with the most relevant news about the world of genre cinema.
News
As we can watch in the trailer for Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025), Death is coming for the members of a family who weren’t supposed to exist. The sixth entry in the horror franchise reaches the big screen on May 16.
Official synopsis: “Plagued by a violent recurring nightmare, college student Stefanie heads home to track down the one person who might be able to break the cycle and save her family from the grisly demise that inevitably awaits them all.”
After premiering at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival, Aislinn Clarke’s Fréwaka (2024) screened at several genre festivals, including Sitges and MOTELX. And now this Irish horror movie is heading to Shudder on April 25. Watch here its trailer.
Synopsis: “Nursing student Shoo takes a placement in a remote Irish village to care for Peig, a reclusive, elderly woman who lives in fear, haunted by her experiences in a Catholic asylum… only to find her own troubled past catching up with her.”
The full trailer for the killer clown slasher Clown in a Cornfield (2025) was shared by RLJE Films and Shudder. Directed by Eli Craig, this adaptation of Adam Cesare’s novel of the same name premiered recently at SXSW, where it got mostly good reviews. It’ll open in U.S. cinemas on May 9.
Speaking of horror clowns, Terrifier‘s Art the Clown has become the protagonist of a retro-inspired video game, titled Terrifier: The ARTcade Game and set to be released on October 17. Director Damien Leone said that the game is “wild and bloody as hell.” You can find details about it on the official website.
In the first teaser trailer for The Ritual (2025), both Al Pacino and Dan Stevens appear as priests, getting ready to perform an exorcism on a young woman. Based on the real-life case of Emma Schmidt, The Ritual will have a theatrical run in the U.S. from June 6 (via XYZ Films).
IFC Films and Shudder unveiled the teaser for Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals (2025), a horror thriller about a female surfer who is “abducted by a shark-obsessed serial killer.” Dangerous Animals, starring Jai Courtney and Hassie Harrison, hits U.S. theaters on June 6.
Festivals
Fantaspoa has been revealing little by little its 2025 lineup. Some of the feature films confirmed so far are: A Samurai in Time (2023), Frankie Freako (2024), Párvulos (2024), An Taibhse (2024), The Gesuidouz (2024), A Whale (Una ballena, 2024), Jimmy and Stiggs (2024), and Rita (2024). Fantaspoa’s 21st edition is taking place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from April 9 to 27.