(Read the Day One recap here and the Day Two recap here.)
The Horror Show banner has been pulled down from Colorado Avenue (one presumes), the Elks Lodge has been deskulled (probably), and the hardworking staff at the Palm Theatre and Sheridan Opera House are finally getting a breather (at least I hope so).
2025's Telluride Horror Show has come to an end, and all I have is a head swimming with brilliant films and a heart full of gratitude to show for it. Day 3's features included repeat screenings of the Adams Family's uncommon and heart-wrenching Mother of Flies, as well as We Bury the Dead, It Ends, Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon, Dolly, Dust Bunny, and all the Shorts Blocks (Vault of Humor, Uncanny Tales, Chamber of Horrors and Sinister Stories – click those links and follow those filmmakers, folks! Some of the most ingenious filmmaking of the fest happened in the shorts blocks). The premieres of the day were Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli's Honey Bunch, Majid Al Ansari's The Vile, the closing night film was Chris Stuckmann's Shelby Oaks, and we had two more 16mm mystery screenings from the Jon Davison archives.
I was proud to host a Q&A with It Ends‘ Noah Toth – this movie is going to settle into my brain forever, I loved it SO much – and the second screening of Dust Bunny was just as riotously attended as the first. Bryan Fuller kept it fresh and funny with his answers the second time around, and as a host, I'm always so relaxed when I open up the Q&A to audience questions at Telluride Horror Show, which I assure you isn't always the case. The audience in Telluride asks thoughtful, intelligent, not remotely embarrassing questions, and that is worth both noting and celebrating.
The events of the day kept the party going, with the annual meeting of the Secret Horror Society: Telluride Chapter (all horror devotees welcome), Brad and Becky's always well-attended Fright or Wrong Trivia, and the yearly closing night party, Last Call at the Last Dollar Saloon. Although it hails the end of the festival, I look forward to this party all weekend, because it's when everyone, even the hard-working festival staff and organizers, take a breath, reflect on the weekend, and allow themselves to enjoy their own efforts.
We're a couple days out now, and I'm still doing some reflecting, myself. The parts of Telluride Horror Show that I love best are the small, personal moments that don't exactly make sense to include in a recap post, but they wholly distinguish this festival from any other I've attended. The first time my eyes land on the mountains, golden with a special light reflecting from the aspens. The way this town smells of damp leaves and wood, how many good dogs there are here, the sound of the San Miguel River rushing in the background as I walk to screenings. The true surreality offered by the altitude acclimation those first couple days, so that everything seems a little dreamlike, a little strange. The way everyone stands in line for movies – filmmakers, journalists, industry people – and no one minds because the lines aren't that bad and anyway, you're standing in one of the prettiest places in the world. Drinking whiskey or walking to the cemetery with some of my favorite writers, just happy to tag along. Listening to the crowd react to a movie I love from behind the screen at the Sheridan Opera House, waiting to walk onstage and introduce a filmmaker I've admired for decades. Talking to Fango fans who come up and tell me how much they love the magazine, and remembering for the thousandth or so time just how lucky I am to have this job, this opportunity, this life.
Anyway, I hope that gives you some small sense of what it feels like to attend Telluride Horror Show for one perfectly autumnal weekend in October. But the best way to experience it is to experience it: the fest returns October 16-18, 2026. Sign up for the newsletter to get your pass when they go live.
