The Total Film FrightFest Awards 2024: the big winners from this year's horror festival

Strange darling film.

In its 25th year – a ripe old age for a festival so invested in death – Pigeon Shrine FrightFest again celebrated the horror, fantasy, and sci-fi genres over five spine-chilling, blood-curdling days.

With its opening and closing movies (Joanne Mitchell’s Broken Bird and Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes-sensation The Substance) both directed by women for the first time in the festival’s history, FrightFest sandwiched 70-odd films in between, offering genre cinema at its cutting-edge best. 

But which movies were the best of the best? Total Film emerged from the fest with bleeding eyeballs and a tattered list of awards…

Best Film

(Image credit: FrightFest)

Dead Mail

The Dead Thing

A Desert

7 Keys

Strange Darling

The Substance

Test Screening

And the winner is…

A Desert

Best Director

(Image credit: FrightFest)

Clark Baker (Test Screening)

Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy (Dead Mail)

Joshua Erkman (A Desert)

Coralie Fargeat (The Substance)

JT Mollner (Strange Darling)

And the winner is…

Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy (Dead Mail)

Best Actor

(Image credit: FrightFest)

John Fleck (Dead Mail)

Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling)

Kai Lennox (A Desert)

Sterling Macer Jr. (Dead Mail)

Zachary Ray Sherman (A Desert)

David Yow (A Desert)

And the winner is…

Zachary Ray Sherman (A Desert)

Best Actress

(Image credit: Miramax Films)

Georgia Conlan (Charlotte)

Willa Fitzgerald (Strange Darling)

Sarah Lind (A Desert)

Emma McDonald (7 Keys)

Demi Moore (The Substance)

Margaret Qualley (The Substance)

And the winner is…

Willa Fitzgerald (Strange Darling)

Best Monster

(Image credit: Mubi)

Bath Beast (Test Screening)

Crabs (Survive)

Dracula (The Last Voyage of the Demeter)

Elisabeth-Sue (The Substance)

Graff (The Last Ashes)

Mr. Analogue (Video Vision)

Toilet Terror (Scared Shitless)

And the winner is…

Elisabeth-Sue (The Substance)

Best Death

(Image credit: Magenta Light Studios)

Dusty Peters (The Invisible Raptor)

Final shot (Strange Darling)

Knife in mouth (The Last Ashes)

'Star of Fame' (The Substance)

Toilet plunge (Scared Shitless)

"You fucking tourist" (A Desert)

And the winner is…

Final shot (Strange Darling)

Best Scare

(Image credit: Paper Street Productions)

Empty cupboard (The Ghost)

Mickey’s trick-or-treating ghost (Traumatika)

"You are the outside" (Fright)

The man in the window (Shelby Oaks)

Stranger danger (Crabs)

And the winner is…

The man in the window (Shelby Oaks)

Best Gore

(Image credit: MUBI)

Bloodbath (The Substance)

Bathtub dismemberment (Protein)

Head torn off (Scared Shitless)

Pier pressure (Mutilator 2)

Spurting stump (The Last Podcast)

And the winner is…

Bloodbath (The Substance)

Best Gross-Out

(Image credit: Mubi)

Achilles heel slices (The Last Ashes)

Meaty smoothie (Protein)

Penis sewn in corpse’s mouth (Broken Bird)

Pulling teeth (The Substance)              

Spine injections (The Substance)

Tongue snip (Members Club)

And the winner is…

Spine injections (The Substance)

Best WTF Twist

(Image credit: FrightFest)

And the winner is...

Survive (The morning after the storm)

Best non-stop limb-lopping, torso-chomping, head-snacking, and just all-round relentlessly hosing claret in a crowd-pleasing manner

(Image credit: FrightFest)

And the winner is...

The Invisible Raptor

Award for striking originality

(Image credit: FrightFest)

And the winner is...

Dead Mail

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That's it from this year's FrightFest! For more scares, check out our list of the best horror movies of all time.