Welcome to the third annual Anomaly - The Rochester Genre Film Festival, this year featuring 13 programs containing 12 feature films and 29 short films of the best genre cinema from around the world! Join us November 4-7 at The Little Theatre in downtown Rochester, NY for a ghoulishly good time!
You must present proof of full vaccination against covid-19, a photo ID, and a mask in order to attend any screening or event at Anomaly this year. For full details — including forms of proof, food/drink policies, and more — please click here to read our covid safety details. Thank you for joining us at the movies!
Scroll down for full schedule | View compacted list schedule (on Eventive)
Click/tap a poster to jump to a film program. | Jump to a day: THURSDAY • FRIDAY • SATURDAY • SUNDAY
Stay tuned for announcements on filmmaker Q&As!
Passholder Pickup
FESTIVAL PASSHOLDERS ONLY
Are you an “early-ghoul” or “full festival” passholder? If so, here’s your chance to pick up & decorate your pass, get vaccination-checked for the whole festival, and enjoy light refreshments as we kick off Anomaly 2021!
Strawberry Mansion
OPENING NIGHT SELECTION
A handcrafted and heartfelt sci-fi fantasy | In a not-so-distant future, a mild-mannered government agent conducts “dream audits,” taxing the unconscious inner lives of the population. His latest assignment takes him to the remote farmhouse of an eccentric aging artist, where he finds himself captivated exploring her vibrant dreams. Traveling through dreamscapes and nightmares, he uncovers a secret that offers a chance for love and hope for escape. Read More + Trailer
[FEATURE]
USA / 2021 / 91 mins
[SHORT]
CANADA / 9 mins
Alligator
35MM “GRINDHOUSE” SCREENING
A vintage creature feature cult classic | When a pet baby alligator named Ramón gets flushed down the toilet and winds up in the sewers of Chicago, he clings to survival by snacking on discarded lab animals injected with experimental growth hormones. Over time he grows to monstrous proportions, and builds up an insatiable appetite. But when Ramón escapes from the sewers and sets off on a path of death and destruction, it’s up to a world-weary cop (Rochester’s own Robert Forster) and a quick-witted reptiles expert to stop his deadly rampage. Screening on 35mm! Read More + Trailer
Print courtesy The American Genre Film Archive
PLUS! The Warehouse
[FEATURE]
USA / 1980 / 94 mins
[SHORT]
SOUTH KOREA / 2021 / 18 mins
Black Friday!
A Festively Gruesome Sci-Fi Horror Comedy | A ragtag group of toy store workers (including genre movie all-stars Bruce Campbell, Devon Sawa, and Michael Jai White), already desperately bracing overnight for the coming Black Friday onslaught, instead find themselves fighting for their lives against a deadly (and gooey) threat from beyond the stars. And they are finding it a little hard to get into the holiday spirit... More Details
PLUS! Claustrophobia
PLUS! Strangers in the Night
[FEATURE]
USA / 2021 / 84 mins
[SHORTS]
USA / 2021 / 1 min
USA / 2020 / 20 mins
After Blue (Dirty Paradise)
An erotic acid trip western fantasy | On a distant planet inhabited solely by women, teenage Roxy impulsively frees the nefarious criminal Kate Bush, immediately unleashing a wave a violence and death. As punishment, Roxy and her mother are exiled from their community and sentenced to track the woman down as they journey across their planet’s savage landscape. An eye-popping feast for the senses. Read More + Trailer
PLUS! 1-888-5-Blue-You
[FEATURE]
FRANCE / 2021 / 127 mins / In French with English subtitles
[SHORT]
USA / 2021 / 8 mins
“You Missed a Spot”
Sweet, Salty, and Scary Saturday Shorts
A smorgasbord of short films flavors, bound to satisfy your every craving. Read More
INCLUDES: Crazy Hat Fridays • Automate • Monster Encounters • The Phone Interview • Castrate Me • Rosso • Posted No Hunting • The Feast • She and the Darkness • The Thing in the Tub • Jupiter & Europa • Motherbunker • Out There • Black Hole • SCRIPT • You Missed A Spot
115 minutes
Zalava
A Paranoia-Soaked Battle Between Superstition and Skepticism | On the brink of re-assignment, an agnostic military officer in 1978 Iran must investigate reports of demonic activity, focussed in a remote village where the residents insist they are inflicted with a century-old curse. There he encounters a man who contends he can trap the demon in a glass jar, and soon the two are in a personal battle between suspicion and belief, fueled by ego and secrets from the past. Read More + Trailer
PLUS! Garden of the Gods
[FEATURE]
IRAN / 2021 / 93 mins / In Kurdish and Persian with English subtitles
[SHORT]
USA / 2021 / 20 mins
Hellbender
A witchy, heavy metal coming-of-age folk horror story | Teenaged Izzy lives with her mother in their isolated house deep in the Catskill Mountains. More than mother and daughter, they’re each other's best friends. But as Izzy grows more independent and increasingly curious about her family’s mysterious ties to witchcraft, her thirst for knowledge sets her toward a dark and dangerous destiny. Read More
PLUS! Annabel Lee
[FEATURE]
USA / 2021 / 86 mins
[SHORT]
UK / 2019 / 16 mins
New York Ninja
A resurrected explosion of ‘80s ninja action | After his wife is murdered, a man transforms himself into the avenging New York Ninja, a vigilante determined to bring the nefarious criminals responsible to justice. Originally shot in 1984 but never completed, Vinegar Syndrome discovered the unfinished reels and set about bringing this undiscovered cult-classic-in-the-making back to life. Read More + Trailer
PLUS! Bloodshed
[FEATURE]
USA / 2021 / 93 mins
[SHORT]
CANADA / 2020 / 13 mins
Let the Wrong One In
A Bloody Comedy of Vampires and Brotherly Love | Two brothers—the “nice” one and the “screw-up”—are trying to navigate their contentious relationship when one of them starts to feel a little funny… and a lot fang-y. The situation doesn’t get any easier when a Van Helsing wannabe (played by Anthony Stewart Head, who knows a thing or two about the vampire slaying game) shows up and tries to pit brother against brother, while keeping secret his own connection to the marauding bacherlorette-party-turned-vampire-gang who have set their voracious sights on Dublin - and anyone who stands in their way. Read More
PLUS! Iron City Asskickers
[FEATURE]
IRELAND / 2021 / 100 mins
[SHORT]
USA / 1998 / 20 mins
Coffee & Donuts
FESTIVAL PASS-HOLDERS
& “DEF BY TEMPTATION” TICKET-HOLDERS
Free regular coffee and autumnal donuts, while supplies last! Start your Sunday out right before “Def by Temptation” and the rest of our awesome last-day lineup!
Def by Temptation
A Morality Tale of Lust and Terror | In a brightly-lit, neon-soaked 90’s New York a hungry succubus stalks the bars of the city, seducing and feasting upon weak and desperate men. Only a newly arrived young minister-in-training, his worldly actor friend, and the one cop who believes in the supernatural can stop her. Maybe. More Details + Trailer
Restoration courtesy of Troma Entertainment and the American Genre Film Archive
PLUS! Forgive Us
[FEATURE]
USA / 1990 / 95 mins
[SHORT]
USA / 2021 / 14 mins
The Found Footage Phenomenon
An analytical celebration of first-person horrors | From CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, GHOSTWATCH to HOST, filmmakers have found incredible versatility in found footage horror stories. And whether you love them or hate them, the impact of found footage films on the horror genre over the decades is unmistakable. In their crash course documentary, co-directors Sarah Appleton and Phillip Escott interview a wide cast of horror luminaries to trace the historical origins of this most polarizing of subgenres, and try to determine where its storytelling possibilities might be headed in the future. Read More + Trailer
PLUS! POSSESSIONS
[FEATURE]
USA / 2021 / 90 mins
[SHORT]
USA / 2019 / 18 mins
We're All Going to the World's Fair
A Hypnotic, Mysterious Coming-Of-Age Exploration | Detached and searching for meaning, a young woman delves into the world of an odd online horror game - documenting and uploading how she believes it is “changing” her, at the same time observing others doing the same, all filtered through the screen of her lonely attic bedroom computer. Is it a just ‘creepy pasta’ inspired adventure? Or is there something more sinister, and very real, going on? Read More
PLUS! What’s Left Inside
[FEATURE]
USA / 2021 / 86 mins
[SHORT]
USA / 2021 / 17 mins
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
CLOSING NIGHT SELECTION
A clever one-shot sci-fi comedy | Café owner Kato makes the shocking realization that the CCTV camera and the monitor in his upstairs apartment form a time loop that allows him to see 2 minutes into the future, and the discovery sets he and his friends off on a bizarre and hilarious adventure through time and space. A wildly inventive gem of indie filmmaking. Read More + Trailer
PLUS! Aria