The Boston Underground Film Festival (BUFF) returns to the Brattle Theatre for its 25th anniversary celebration, from March 19th–23rd, 2025.
BUFF kicks off with the East Coast Premiere of Lorcan Finnegan’s The Surfer, starring Nicolas Cage as a man who returns to his childhood beach only to find himself in a psychological death match with territorial locals.
BUFF will host the world premiere of Alma & The Wolf, the latest from Michael Patrick Jann (Drop Dead Gorgeous), a slow-burn psychological thriller about a troubled cop (Ethan Embry) investigating a vicious wolf attack that quickly spirals into the uncanny, the unexplainable, and the deeply unsettling. Jann and actor Lukas Jann will be in attendance to discuss their eerie, Oregon-set mystery.
BUFF’s East Coast Premieres include Fucktoys, Annapurna Sriram’s 16mm Tarot-fueled hallucinogenic odyssey, with Sriram and actor Sadie Scott in attendance; and from Canada, Stefan MacDonald-Labelle’s Head Like a Hole (with MacDonald-Labelle in attendance).
Among the New England Premieres, Yûta Shimotsu’s Best Wishes to All delivers a skin-crawling, slow-burn J-horror where family, tradition, and generational happiness conceal a deeply rotten core. Emilie Blichfeldt’s The Ugly Stepsister gleefully shreds Cinderella to pieces, crafting a body-horror fairy tale about the brutal lengths we go to for beauty. And Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight plunges a newlywed into a genre-blending fever dream of misanthropic mayhem, self-destruction, and darkly comic carnage.
For fans of maximalist sci-fi lunacy, BUFF is thrilled to present the New England Premiere of Yang Li’s Escape from the 21st Century, where three teens discover that adulthood is a dystopian nightmare after sneezing themselves 20 years into the future. Meanwhile, Alexandre O. Philippe’s docu Chain Reactions (East Coast Premiere) dissects the seismic influence of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, featuring insights from Stephen King, Karyn Kusama, and Takashi Miike.
BUFF also welcomes the Massachusetts Premiere of Vulcanizadora, Joel Potrykus’ latest descent into existential dread, following two friends on a doomed pilgrimage through the Michigan woods. Meanwhile, in the New England Premiere of Fréwaka, Aislinn Clarke crafts a haunting portrait of trauma and disorientation, as a nursing student’s past bleeds into her present, warping reality itself; the first Irish-language horror film!
BUFF is set to present a rare repertory screening of Muerte en la Playa (1991), a queer-coded, blood-soaked, telenovelesque Mexican thriller ripe for rediscovery courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive.
The festival will also celebrate the world premiere of the 4K restoration of Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator for its 40th anniversary, with horror icon Barbara Crampton in attendance. This landmark screening will showcase the brand-new 4K UHD restoration from Ignite Films and Eagle Rock Pictures.
BOSTON UNDERGROUND 2025 FESTIVAL LINEUP
Opening Night Film
THE SURFER – East Coast Premiere
Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Nicholas Cassim
Australia, Ireland, 2024
A man returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son. When he is humiliated by a group of locals, the man is drawn into a conflict that keeps rising and pushes him to his breaking point.
Spotlight Screening
RE-ANIMATOR – World Premiere of the 4K Restoration & 40th Anniversary Screening
Director: Stuart Gordon
Cast: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton
USA, 1985
With Special Guest Barbara Crampton in Attendance
After an odd new medical student arrives on campus, a dedicated local and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue.
This special theatrical screening will feature the World Premiere of the new pristine 40th Anniversary 4K UHD restoration of Re-Animator from Ignite Films and Eagle Rock Pictures, which is available for pre-order on Blu-ray and 4K UHD discs at Ignite-Films.com. (It includes 2 hours and 47 minutes of brand-new bonus materials, plus all classic legacy features.)
Feature Film Lineup
ALMA & THE WOLF – World Premiere
Director: Michael Patrick Jann
Cast: Ethan Embry, Li Jun Li, Mather Zickel
USA, 2025
With Filmmaker Michael Patrick Jann and actor Lukas Jann in Attendance
Horror and madness emerge from the shrouded mists of coastal Oregon. A violent wolf attack. A missing son. The appearance of a dangerous and seductive woman from the past. How are they connected? At the cost of his sanity, Deputy REN Accord (Ethan Embry) must unravel the mystery and discover the truth before time runs out.
BEST WISHES TO ALL – New England Premiere
Director: Yûta Shimotsu
Cast: Kotone Furukawa, Kôya Matsudai
Japan, 2023
A young woman visits her grandparents on a break from university. While she’s there, she discovers a dark secret about them and potentially herself.
CHAIN REACTIONS – East Coast Premiere
Director: Alexandre O. Philippe
USA, 2024
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s impact on 5 artists – Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, Karyn Kusama – through interviews, outtakes, exploring how it shaped their art, psyche from childhood trauma.
ESCAPE FROM THE 21ST CENTURY – New England Premiere
Director: Yang Li
Cast: Ruoyun Zhang, Elane Zhong, Yang Song
China, 2024
Three friends discover that they have the power to travel back and forth 20 years with a sneeze. However, the future is not as good as they hope, and they need to take on the responsibility of saving the world.
FRÉWAKA – New England Premiere
Director: Aislinn Clarke
Cast: Clare Monnelly, Bríd Ní Neachtain, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya
Ireland, 2024
Haunted by a personal tragedy, home care worker, Shoo, is sent to a remote village to care for an agoraphobic woman who fears the neighbors as much as she fears the Na Sídhe — sinister entities who she believes abducted her decades before. As the two develop a strangely deep connection, Shoo is consumed by the old woman’s paranoia, rituals, and superstitions, eventually confronting the horrors from her own past.
FUCKTOYS – East Coast Premiere
Director: Annapurna Sriram
Cast: Annapurna Sriram, Sadie Scott, Damian Young, Brandon Flynn, François Arnaud, Big Freedia
USA, 2025
With filmmaker Annapurna Sriram and actor Sadie Scott in Attendance
A lush 16mm fever dream that reimagines The Fool’s Journey of the Major Arcana of the Tarot through the story of AP–a rosy young woman seeking salvation from a curse.
HEAD LIKE A HOLE – East Coast Premiere
Director: Stefan MacDonald-Labelle
Cast: Steve Kasan, Jeff McDonald, Eric B. Hansen
Canada, 2024
With filmmaker Stefan MacDonald-Labelle in Attendance
In financial dire straits, a man accepts a strange, high-paying job where he must take up residence in a home and measure a hole in the wall of the basement to determine whether or not it’s growing in size.
MUERTE EN LA PLAYA – Repertory Screening
Director: Enrique Gómez Vadillo
Cast: Andrés Bonfiglio, Sonia Infante, Rodolfo de Anda
Mexico, 1991
A disturbed young man who was molested by his teacher begins murdering those around him who he sees responsible for his trauma while trying to overcome his own homosexual desires.
SISTER MIDNIGHT – New England Premiere
Director: Karan Kandhari
Cast: Radhika Apte, Ashok Pathak, Chhaya Kadam
India, 2024
A newly arranged marriage sees an oddball couple shoved together in a small Mumbai shack with paper-thin walls. They are alone, awkward and together. Cranky Uma does her best to cope with the heat, her complete lack of domestic skills, nosy neighbors and her bumbling spouse until one night she discovers strange new feral cravings.
THE UGLY STEPSISTER – East Coast Premiere
Director: Emilie Blichfeldt
Cast: Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp
Norway, 2025
In a twisted take on the classic Cinderella story, ‘The Ugly Stepsister’ follows Elvira as she battles to compete with her insanely beautiful stepsister. In a fairy-tale kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, Elvira will go to any lengths to catch the Prince’s eye. ‘The Ugly Stepsister’ is the gory tale of the blood and sweat, grit and gold that goes into making Elvira the belle of the ball.
VULCANIZADORA – MA Premiere
Director: Joel Potrykus
Cast: Joshua Burge, Joel Potrykus, Solo Potrykus
USA, 2024
Two friends trudge through a Michigan forest with the intention of following through on a disturbing pact. After they fail, one of them must return home to deal with the legal and emotional repercussions.
BOSTON UNDERGROUND 2025 SHORTS LINEUP
THE DUNWICH HORRORS – NEW ENGLAND HORROR
Good Looking Out dir. by Seth Chatfield
Ache dir. by Mike Canale
Damn Handy dir. by Peter Filardi
Followers dir. by Miriam Olken
Forever War dir. by Shana Figueroa
Katie’s Skin dir. by Steven Schloss
Methuselah dir. by Nathan Sellers
My Child dir. by Deniz Akyurek
Sogno Rosso (Red Dream) dir. by Coco Roy
TRIGGER WARNING – MIDNIGHT BLOCK
Brothers Beastly dir. by Peter J. Hartsock
Burn Out dir. by Russell Goldman
F#cker dir. by Amir Baikatov
Mopsorden dir. by Julien Jauniaux
Rejected dir. by Rene R Rivas
Terminal Emulator dir. by Benjamin Capps
The Night Has 1000 Desires! dir. by Vance Osteen
LOVE TO LOVE YOU MAYBE – COMEDY BLOCK
Banjo dir. by Cameron Poletti
But He’s Gay dir. by Michael Calciano
Catamaran dir. by Joseph Rocco Plescia
Erection and Destruction dir. by Eddie Mullins
Handball dir. by Eli Beutel
Make Me A Pizza dir. by Talia Shea Levin
SexySweat dir. by Luke Condzal
The Streetlight dir. by Sophia Parella
The Time Capsule dir. by Michael Charron
There Will Be Womanly Wiles dir. by Nicole Higgins
RAGDOLL DANCE — ANIMATION BLOCK
A Walk in the Park dir. by Jay Marks
Demons in the Closet dir. by James Smith
Howl if You Love Me dir. by John R. Dilworth
Les Bêtes dir. by Michael Granberry
Lilly Visits the Hospital dir. by The Bum Family
Peeping dir. by Yixuan Wang
Pippy and The Typist dir. by Rachel Nemez
Pocket Princess dir. by Olivia Loccisano
Poppa dir. by Peter Ahern
Red Thumb dir. by Kolya Kishinsky, Geneva Huffman
The Garden Sees Fire dir. by Kiera Faber
The House of Weird dir. by Mark Reyes
MUST HAVE GOT LOST – SHORTS BLOCK
Belly Belly dir. by Gabriel Carnick
Good Boy dir. by Colin Russell
How To Clean The Dishes dir. by Benjamin Thomae
Macula dir. by Julietta Korbel
Nadir dir. by Jack Galvin
Perfectly a Strangeness dir. by Alison McAlpine
Rabbit dir. by Nathan Catucci
The Audacity dir. by Desmond Spranklin