How much do you love horror movies? Enough to watch them for half a day in an indie theatre, while sitting next to someone spattered in fake blood?
That’s exactly what a massive crowd of horror sickos did on October 25, 2025. The Calgary Underground Film Festival‘s annual 12-Hour Horror Movie Marathon has become a Cowtown Halloween tradition —a 7-to-7, all-night party at Globe Cinema that felt like a slumber party with your best friends, watching VHS tapes your mom wouldn’t approve of. Both the upstairs and downstairs theatres were packed with folks in costume (some standouts include a disco Frankenstein, Bob from One Battle After Another, and Hank and Peggy Hill), clutching pillows for dear life, sipping cold ones and munching endless bags of popcorn. The lobby was bumpin’, with CUFF’s famous hot dog bar going on all night and the fearless Globe concession crew manning the soda machines like a battleship. At around midnight during a costume contest, CUFF employees barged into the lobby with several boxes full of McDonald’s cheeseburgers to revive half-asleep horror fans; in the morning hours, these same heroes came in clutch with a sugary cereal bar. One needs more than Red Bull if they’re gonna make it till 7 a.m.! (Although there was plenty of Red Bull on hand).
The films screened skewed towards comedy horror, with 2025’s Hold The Fort leading things off, followed by Alex Winter’s surreal cult film Freaked and Mel Brooks’ classic Young Frankenstein. After a brief burger-and-beer break, the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers eased the audience into the wee hours with classic gross-out body horror. Alligator (1980) and Black Sunday (1960) kept people going until the little-known Psycho II capped off the event before releasing the crowd at 7 a.m. to shamble down Stephen Avenue like zombies.
Have no fear if you missed out, or if your butt could only take so much of the Globe’s seats and you had to duck out early; you can relive all the highlights right here with The Scene magazine.
All photos by Sebastian Buzzalino.
Captions by Nathan Iles.
