2023 Special Events

CLAWS

Immersive Performance

Required Separate Ticket

Creator: Evan Neiden / Candle House Collective

“You believe me, don’t you?” You get a call from a young man named Danny. There’s a monster in his closet, and he needs your help. But as the call goes on and more sinister intentions are revealed, it begs the question: which side of the closet door is the danger really on? Claws is a 45-minute interactive thriller for one person to experience via a phone call. It’s a spine-chilling realization of childhood nightmares, exploring themes of trust, identity, and forgiveness. Your choices matter as the story unfolds, in an experience critics have called “bold and risky” and “the scariest immersive experience we’ve ever had”. Extremely limited availability. Runtime: Approx. 45 minutes. Participants: 1 per slot. Cost: $45

CLOSING NIGHT HALLOWEEN PARTY

Party

Presented By SAGIndie

Hosted By The Howlin’ Wolf

Trick or Treat! Spring into Fall with our annual Overlook Halloween Party held on April Fool’s Day! Paranormal performances, devilish disco, frights, lights, horror delights, and even the famous Haunted Hearse! Immerse yourself in America’s Most Haunted City and conjure the spirit to dance all night long. Live performances and more to be announced. Costumes are a must. Don’t be afraid to bring your loudest looks!

FINAL EXAM HORROR TRIVIA: OVERLOOK EDITION

FREE EVENT

Presented By Daily Dead

Test your fright! Filmmaker Ted Geoghegan, director of We Are Still Here and Brooklyn 45, brings his wildly popular Final Exam Horror Trivia back to Overlook with four ghoulish rounds of questions about everything from sleazy slashers to Haitian zombies! Order a stiff drink, win killer prizes, and scare yourself silly with how much you actually know about horror cinema.

FRIDAY NIGHT DARK ART MARKET

Party

Presented by Cottage Magick

Hosted By Rahm Haus Ice Cream At Courtyard Brewery

A New Orleans market dedicated to all things dark, creepy and esoteric materializes on festival Friday for all your ghastly needs. With ghoulish local vendors, performances and secrets, this dark carnival will be your one stop shop for the entire evening until it vanishes into the night with your soul.

HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE IN A CHALLENGING MARKET

Live Show

Creator, Performer: Grady Hendrix

From Pliny the Younger to the Amityville Horror, we’ve been convinced there’s something undead living inside our homes rent-free for thousands of years. New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix presents another of his one-of-a kind, one-man shows, tap-dancing through the haunted hallways of houses from Downton Abbey-sized country homes to split-level suburban ranchers as we try to figure out why we’re so obsessed with the world’s worst roommates — ghosts. This is the seminar that will change your life…guaranteed!

IN ANOTHER ROOM

Immersive Performance

Required Separate Ticket

Creators: E3W Productions

A new selection from E3W Productions makes its Overlook debut! Paige has always thought there was something wrong with her little brother’s bedroom: the floorboards creak, the walls groan, and something scratches at the door at night. Now, with the help of some new friends, Paige intends to confront the monster lurking in the shadows. E3W Productions invites you to step inside a child’s bedroom and come face to face with a young girl’s worst nightmares in this standalone scene from their acclaimed 2018 show In Another Room Part 2. Runtime: Approx. 15 minutes. Participants: up to 4 at a time. Cost: $20. Masks and Proof of Vaccination required.

THE KINGCAST

Live Show

Presented By FANGORIA

Hosts: Eric Vespe & Guest Co-Host Phil Nobile Jr.
Creators: Eric Vespe, Scott Wampler

Since 2020, the FANGORIA Podcast Network’s The Kingcast, created and hosted by Eric Vespe Since 2020, the FANGORIA Podcast Network’s The Kingcast, created and hosted by Eric Vespe & Scott Wampler, has brought together some of the biggest filmmakers, authors, comedians and pop culture commentators to obsess over Stephen King’s ever-expanding library of stories, novels, TV miniseries and feature film adaptations for a series of conversations that are hilarious as often as they are heartwarming and unexpected. After a rousing screening at last year’s festival, co-host Eric Vespe once again checks into The Overlook to drill down on the master of horror, this time with FANGORIA editor-in-chief Phil Nobile Jr. stepping in as co-host and David Farrier (Mister Organ) as their guest to discuss The Dead Zone.

THE LAST MAGIC SHOW

Live Show

Available Exclusively To All Pass Holders

Presented By The Academy of Magical Arts

Creator, Performer: Zabrecky

There’s simply no other entertainer like Zabrecky. As a magical humorist, he creates a dryly abstracted, austere universe that pushes magic to its very edges and explores bizarre and contemplative human behavior. Like film director David Lynch, Zabrecky sets the stage for everyday life, then sets it on fire. With The Last Magic Show, Zabrecky brings to Overlook highlights from his world-famous and globally renowned magic shows as well as new work, bundling them into one highly entertaining performance featuring his particularly distinct point of view.

LINGERING ECHOES: THE 2023 OVERLOOK IMMERSIVE GAME

Immersive Performance

Available To All Pass Holders

Creators: The Ministry of Peculiarities

Overlook’s famed immersive game has been completely reconceived for 2023 as a multi-day alternate reality experience that wraps the entire festival in one overarching, interactive story. The Ministry of Peculiarities, a secretive organization dedicated to puzzling phenomena, has brought a mysterious artifact from their archives to the Overlook Film Festival. But when they unwittingly unleash a torrent of long-forgotten horrors, the Ministry enlists festivalgoers to become an invaluable — or, perhaps, expendable — part of their team. Participants can expect in-person interactions, light puzzle-solving, and a story that runs from Opening Night to our Closing Night Party. While all festival passholders can participate in the game, immersive show ticket holders can expect additional interactions that take their experience into unexpected new directions.

THE MINISTRY OF PECULIARITIES PRESENTS A HISTORY OF SOUND IN MOTION PICTURES

Live Show

Presented By The Ministry of Peculiarities

Available Exclusively To All Pass Holders

The Overlook Film Festival is pleased to welcome The Ministry of Peculiarities for a one-time-only event exploring the exciting evolution of cinema’s technological history!

The Ministry will be discussing a system from the origins of sound film: the Vitaphone. Audiences will also be treated to a rare short film, recently discovered in the Ministry’s archives, projected on the very same device! It’s sure to be an unforgettable event, and the perfect way to kick off your Overlook adventures.

OPENING NIGHT VAMPIRE BALL

Party

Presented By Magnet Releasing

Hosted by Toulouse Theatre

Prepare to be dazzled by the deceased. Dress to impress the possessed! Awaken the undead with live music, sanguine cocktails and more spooky surprises to celebrate the opening of the 2023 Overlook Film Fest and an evening full of vampire-themed programming. Hold onto all your blood, if you can.

THE ORACLE

Immersive Performance

World Premiere

Presented By The Academy of Magical Arts

Required Separate Ticket

Creator: Jared Kopf

The Oracle is an all-new, one-on-one immersive theater experience from Tarologist and Soothsayer Jared Kopf. You will enter a room alone. Questions will be asked. Opportunities will be given. Futures will be revealed. Runtime: Approx. 15 minutes. Participants: 1 per slot. Cost Of Admission: a dead man’s tooth $33.33. Proof Of Vaccination Required.

RING, RING: A DOORBELL CAM FANTASIA

Live Show

Presented By The Museum of Home Video

Host: Bret Berg

Museum of Home Video is a weekly found footage livestream for stoners, seekers, archivists and drinkers. For its first fest presentation, MOHV premieres a new feature-length edit that’s chilling and all too-real! Plus, the program’s rounded out with a found footage trove of horror movie ephemera. Our modern surveillance state is built one doorbell cam at a time. Nearly one in four U.S. homes is decked out with them; they’re literally everywhere. Thus the subculture of viral doorbell cam mixtapes was born, highlighting an ocean of creepy human behavior befitting a slasher film. In Ring, Ring, you’ll see the very best of porch thieves, patio punks, door-to-door doorbell lickers, local yokels flipping birds, scared-stiff missionaries, wasted grandmas, killer klowns, Karen-style freakouts, armed assailants, autonomous lawnmowers, pyrotechnic explosions, rainy day weirdos and the pure soulless eyes of chaos.

SQÜRL

Live Music Performance

Presented By Kickstarter

SQÜRL is: Carter Logan and Jim Jarmusch, an enthusiastically marginal rock band from New SQÜRL is: Jim Jarmusch, Carter Logan and Erik Sanko, an enthusiastically marginal rock band from New York City who like big drums & distorted guitars, cassette recorders, loops, feedback, sad country songs, molten stoner core, chopped & screwed hip-hop and imaginary movie scores. SQÜRL began in 2009 with Jarmuch and Logan recording original music for the film The Limits of Control before going on to explore the back-alleys of American country, noise and psychedelia. The two have since composed and performed the scores to the films Only Lovers Left Alive (with Jozef Van Wissem), Paterson, The Dead Don’t Die and the documentary, Living the Light – Robby Müller. They are joined live by Erik Sanko of the band Skeleton Key, who has previously played with John Cale, The Lounge Lizards, They Might be Giants and Yoko Ono, among others.  

STAGE FRIGHT

Live Show

FREE EVENT

Creator, Host: Ryan Rogers

Laugh To Death at Stage Fright. Set in the mysterious Chapel Club in the storied Hotel Saint Vincent, Stage Fright features Nola’s greatest comedians telling hilarious stories about fear. Showrunner and host Ryan Rogers presides over a murderer’s row of absolute killers: Jeff D, JQ Palms, Shep Kelley, Adam Crochet, Amanda G, Taj Washington and Vivi Noir. Join us for the time of your afterlife.

THOU

Live Music Performance

Presented By Kickstarter

Though often lumped in with New Orleans sludge bands like Eyehategod and Crowbar, Thou shares a more spiritual kinship with ’90s proto-grunge bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden (all of whom they’ve covered extensively, both in the studio and onstage). The band’s aesthetic and political impulses reflect the obscure ’90s DIY hardcore punk found on labels like Ebullition, Vermiform and Crimethinc.

UNDERSIGNED

Immersive Performance

Required Separate Ticket

Creator: Yannick Trapman-O’Brien

Undersigned is a psychological thriller for an audience of one. Depending on your choices, it will last between 60-90 minutes. Your participation will involve an invocation, a blindfold and a pointed discussion. The topics of this discussion will vary based on your input, and may include — but are not limited to — Money, Power, Sex, Pleasure, Violence, Blood, Body Horror, Moral Horror, Economic Horror, Wild Conjecture and the Occult. ​ Called “One of the Best Immersive Experiences of 2022” by No Proscenium, Undersigned is decidedly in-person — and you will be required to sign a waiver. Extremely limited availability. Runtime: Approx. 60-90 minutes. Participants: 1 per slot. Cost: $65. Proof of Vaccination And Masking Required.