If horror happens in the dark, the midnight movie showing was once the perfect way of gauging the genre’s health. But those days may be over. “When we were a film club, our first ever cinema screening was Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer in 2003, and it was full,” says Pedro Souto, co-director of Lisbon’s horror-centric MotelX festival. “But you don’t have that many people at midnight any more. I don’t know why.” He’s right: the midnight slot I attend – of the gore-bathed Indonesian kung fu flick Ikatan Darah – is only half full. Only a few appreciative chuckles when meat-cleavers plunge into craniums suggest the old midnight spirit still lives.
No need to panic, though: horror has simply embraced the light. With the genre exploding in the 2010s and 2020s, and blockbusting grosses this year for the likes of Obsession and Backrooms, MotelX is able to gorge itself on this cultural jugular. Now in its 20th edition, the festival has expanded to 11 days, with more than 170 films from 40 countries. Flashy branding – a howling gimp and the signature X, both in inflatable PVC – is dotted on around city billboards. At the opening ceremony, a gigantic birthday cake – the self-same gimp emerging from a lake of gelatine “blood” – is massacred by the punters within 20 minutes. Crowds seem abundant at most screenings, dominated by a heatwave look (dark singlets, shorts and sweaty tattoos) best described as “goth Decathlon”.
