Horrorthon is, this year, coming your way a little earlier than usual. The excellent gorefest begins next Thursday, October 22nd at the Irish Film Institute in Dublin. Ed King, the event’s indefatigable chief wizard, was bullish at the launch of the programme.

“It has been a terrific year for horror, with an overabundance of brilliant new titles to choose from,” he said. “The result is that this year’s programme is packed full of new films, giving Horrorthon-goers more sneak previews of the goriest movies we could bear to watch.”

The festival opens with

a screening of Karyn Kusama’s controversial shocker, Jennifer’s Body, and goes on to take in an array of juicy titles such as Contamination, The Hills Run Red and – one of many old favourites on display – Silent Night, Deadly Night. Joe Dante’s indestructible Gremlins is to be wheeled out in a shiny 70mm print, and Joe Pilato, star of George Romero’s Day of the Dead, will attend a screening of that zombie classic.

The event winds down on October 26th with an early outing for The Descent 2, a sequel to Neil Marshall’s speleological classic from 2005, and the perennially popular surprise – or should that be “shock” – film. We genuinely have no idea what Ed has planned for the mystery slot, but we are fairly sure that it’s not Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakwell. www.horrorthon.com