Scenes From 12 Hours of Terror 2026

Outside the Belcourt on Saturday night, just before the theater’s annual overnight horrorthon 12 Hours of Terror, attendees’ outfits skewed creepy-cozy: a Day of the Dead hoodie, candy corn pajama pants, skeleton onesies. Some, however, went all out. 

“Get a little creative, and you can make something come to life,” a bartender named Navi, dressed as Candyman, told the Scene outside the theater. Navi’s hook hand took 15 hours to build out of Liquid Latex and a Pringles can. It later paid off with a first-place victory at the event’s midnight costume contest.

12 Hours of Terror has achieved legendary status in the 15 years the Belcourt has hosted it. The marathon routinely sells out during the members-only ticket presale, and by 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, the line to get in was already stretching down 21st Avenue to Rebecca James Clothing. Not all of the attendees would survive. The evening’s fourth movie is traditionally its unofficial seat emptier, and this year’s selection, the 1974 Ed Gein-themed downer Deranged, was a gnarly, effective filter.

Early in the night, though, spirits were high. Outside, attendees perused the offerings at the Press Play Video trailer, or pregamed with Mexican food at the Burritos la Mina food truck. In the lobby, the first of three rounds of drink specials curated by Henrietta Red’s Pat Halloran was on sale, and Huginn & Muninn were offering tarot and astrology readings in a makeshift graveyard scene near the theater’s “100 Years of the Belcourt” exhibit. 

At 10 p.m., after a screening of Nashville horror-comedy rockers Boo Dudes’ latest music video — “Haunted T-Shirt,” from their new album Dumb Kind of Monster — the gauntlet began with the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. Introduced by the Belcourt’s Zack Hall, Scene senior film critic Jason Shawhan, the great horror host Dr. Gangrene and actress and writer Thashana McQuiston, it was a fitting sequel to last year’s marathon, which began with a restoration of Day of the Dead. From there, the screenings charted a haunted seven-film path toward the 2002 female Frankenstein story May, with diversions into retro horror-comedy (The Monster Club), avant-garde giallo (The Many Colours of the Dark) and absolute nonsense (Poltergeist III).

By movie number five, the crowd was delirious, with a selection to match for what Shawhan described as the evening’s “international ‘what the fuck’” slot. Luigi Cozzi’s 1989 film The Black Cat is ostensibly inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe short story, but it bears little to no resemblance — even the characters’ in-universe Poe adaptation doesn’t make any sense. Instead, the plot hinges on a baffling witch named Levana and her cronies. The climax hits with a few explosions and cuts to outer space, as well as this iconic line from heroine Anne: “Sorry, Sarah, but I can control time now.”

There’s a fugue state that sets in at 12 Hours of Terror after 2:30 a.m. hits and the bar can’t sell alcohol anymore. The norms of theater watching start to go out the window: Some denizens get up whenever they want to resupply coffee and candy or just mill around in the lobby, while others nestle into their seats with pillows and blankets and fall right asleep. It’s the kind of unfussy, no-makeup bonding experience that you might achieve at a college all-nighter, or an elementary school sleepover. What makes 12 Hours of Terror special is that you’re not just experiencing it with your friends — you’re also there with your neighbors.

12 Hours of Terror 2026 film selections:

• Night of the Living Dead, directed by Tom Savini (1990)

• The Monster Club, directed by Roy Ward Baker (1981)

• All the Colours of the Dark, directed by Sergio Martino (1972)

• Deranged, directed by Alan Ormsby and Jeff Gillen (1974)

• The Black Cat, directed by Luigi Cozzi (1989)

• Poltergeist III, directed by Gary Sherman (1988)

• May, directed by Lucky McKee (2002)