Cine-Excess 2025 returns with a thrilling theme—“Reanimated! Reviving Cult Film’s Dead Objects”—offering a week-long exploration of cult cinema’s eerie past and dynamic future. Running from Monday 20th to Sunday 26th October 2025, the event will be hosted online, in cinemas, and in person in Birmingham, UK.
This year’s focus celebrates the 40th anniversary of Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985), a milestone in cult horror cinema. Honoring the legacy of Re-Animator, the festival will host producer Brian Yuzna for a Lifetime Achievement Award, alongside a posthumous tribute to Stuart Gordon.
A Star-Studded Line-Up and Gothic Reimaginings
Cult icon Lynn Lowry—known for Shivers, The Crazies, and I Drink Your Blood—will also receive a Lifetime Achievement Award and share her career insights in an exclusive streamed session.
In light of the recent success of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024), the festival amplifies its focus on contemporary body horror. This year’s keynote speaker, Dr. Xavier Aldana Reyes, will provide scholarly insights drawn from his leading research on Gothic and horror cinema.
Call for Papers: Reviving the Obscure and Celebrating the Bizarre
The festival invites 20-minute papers or pre-constituted panels reflecting on cult film’s revivals, reinterpretations, and “dead objects” across diverse contexts. Suggested topics include:
- Re-Animator at 40
- Lynn Lowry’s cult legacy
- Cronenbergian body horror and Shivers
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show at 50
- Revival of VHS and analogue media
- Feminist revisions of body trauma
- Zombie cinema through Romero’s lens
- Vampire media evolutions
- Posthumous recognitions in cult media
- Animation, weird science, and forgotten scripts
A full list of topics is available in the official call.
Conference Formats and Registration Details
Participants can opt for:
- Online Conference (Minimum 2 days during the week starting 20 October)
- Includes access to virtual screenings and filmmaker talks
- In-person Symposium (Friday 24 October, Birmingham, UK)
- Includes cinema screenings and access to online components
Cine-Excess has long stood as a diverse, inclusive, and safe space for emerging and established scholars, filmmakers, and community contributors to engage with cult film discourse.
Submission Guidelines
Interested participants should send:
- A 300-word abstract
- A short bio
to the following organizers by Friday, 15th August 2025:
- John Atkinson: john.atkinson@cine-excess.co.uk
- Dr. Daniel Sheppard: daniel.sheppard@bcu.ac.uk
- Prof. Xavier Mendik: xavier.mendik@cine-excess.co.uk
Decisions will be communicated by Friday, 22nd August 2025. Selected papers will be considered for publication in the eighth edition of the Cine-Excess journal (2026).
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