Boston Underground Film Festival announces schedule for its 24th year

It’s film festival season, which is the perfect time to check out new and upcoming horror and thrillers. Boston Underground Film Festival (BUFF) is about to enter its 24th year of presenting such films, and 1428 Elm has the info for you.

BUFF will be returning to Harvard Square’s Brattle Theatre, and the promoters promise us this year’s films are “stacked with stone-cold killers, covetous cretins, nocturnal nuisances, and all manner of midnight madness.” The festival runs from March 20 through March 24.

Here are the films attendees can look forward to watching:

Boy Kills World – Bill Skarsgard stars in the title role of Boy, whose family has been murdered. The deaf Boy hides in the jungle, where a strange mentor helps him seek the vengeance he is after.

Femme – Our main character is Jules, who appears in drag as the very confident Aphrodite Banks. Offstage, he is simply seen as an overly-effeminate man. When Jules is the victim of a vicious homophobic attack, he withdraws until he encounters one of his attackers in a sauna. The attacker doesn’t recognize Jules, who now decides he wants revenge.

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person – Teenage Sasha is a vampire with an unusual trait: Her extreme empathy prevents her from being able to randomly kill humans for blood, she needs to feel some sort of connection with those she feeds from. Then she meets Paul, who is willing to sacrifice himself so she can fee.

Immaculate – In this highly anticipated horror film, a young nun named Cecilia goes to an illustrious convent in Italy, believing this will be a great experience. But, things are not as they seem on the surface, and there is definitely a dark side to this particular convent.


In a Violent Nature – Director Chris Nash has crafted an 80s-style gory slasher that turns the genre on its head in surprising ways. Our killer is Johnny, who was killed in a prank gone bad – yet, he has returned to slice and dice everyone in his path.

Infested – Loner Kaleb is headed towards 30, and has cut ties with family and friends. When he captures a spider in a shop, he takes it home for companionship, but he chose the wrong spider. This one is deadly, and soon the apartment building is overrun with the venomous spiders. This one will be headed to Shudder soon!

Off Ramp – Trey and Silas are Juggalos and close friends who have spent the last year apart due to Trey’s incarceration. When he is released, the two set out to attend The Gathering of the Juggalos. But they end up caught up in blood rituals, psycho law enforcement, occult good ol’ boys and the like.

Omen – Feeling nostalgic and longing to return to his roots, a Belgian resident named Koffi travels to his birthplace in the Congo. But nostalgia only goes so far, as Koffi begins to discover the troubling history of his family.

Sleep – Pregnant Soo Jin is worried about her husband Hyun Su, who has begun walking and talking in his sleep. The two seek treatment, but the sleepwalking episodes only get worse. The Seoul Story referred to Sleep as “One of the most thought-provoking movies of the year.”

Strange Kindness – “Strange Kindness is a film about isolation, the shocking acts of violence that have come to punctuate our American dream, and what empathy might look like at its further limits.”

The Becomers – When their planet becomes uninhabitable, two alien lovers escape separately and end up on earth in America. As the body snatchers jump from person to person, they try to find one another.

Tiger Stripes – In this Malaysian body horror film, an 11-year-old girl named Zaffan is beginning to go through puberty, which causes horrific changes to her body.

With Love and a Major Organ – In a world where emotion and individuality is being suppressed via an app called LifeZap, Annabelle is still able to feel emotion. When she falls in love with George, his inability to reciprocate causes her to remove her heart and give it to him. When he puts it in his chest, he starts to feel emotions for the very first time.