By NightTide Magazine
In partnership with the George A. Romero Foundation, the hybrid festival and industry summit will take place August 1st, 2025
New York, NY – Access: Horror film festival will return this summer as a hybrid festival and industry summit, both online and live in New York City, to celebrate disability in horror and genre cinema. Named as one of the most accessible film festivals in the nation by Forbes, Access: Horror will kick off events on August 1st with a 6-hour program at DCTV Firehouse Cinema in New York City (87 Lafayette St.). Featuring the tagline, “So Inclusive, It’s Scary,” The festival is taking place in partnership with the George A. Romero Foundation.
For the first time, the horror streaming service SHUDDER will also be streaming all of the Access:Horror short films on their platform.
Access: Horror was founded by acclaimed filmmaker, author, podcaster and horror activist Ariel Baska. Beyond films, the event will host panels, discussions and Q&A’s from various luminaries from horror and disability advocacy communities.
This year’s festival will have a heightened relevance in the wake of attacks on Medicaid, Medicare, and fundamental disability rights legislation.
“Access:Horror is a celebration of disability that flies in the face of the existential threats posed by RFK, Jr., the attacks on Medicaid, and a rising tide of eugenics supporters.” says Baska.
Access: Horror will be hosted by Ariel Baska, alongside Sharai Bohannon and Xero Gravity of the Blerdy Massacre Podcast, and Phil Nobile Jr., the editor-in-chief of Fangoria will preside over the awards ceremony. The event will feature a panel on Blackness and Disability in Horror and a collection of 10 short horror films. Highlights include, The Shadow Wrangler by filmmaker and actor Grace Rex, noted for her recurring role on the Apple TV hit Severance, Lady Parts, directed by Ariel McCleese (editor-in-chief of BloodLetter Magazine), and Tight, by Jessica Barr, which had its premiere at SXSW.
“I am here to create a way for community to come together and defiantly celebrate inclusivity wherever we can, however we can,” says Baska. “We are extending our reach from New York City to the wilds of Virginia and the coastal Bay Area this fall, through partnerships with Lost Weekend Film Festival at the Alamo Drafthouse Winchester, and Superfest Disability Film Festival at the San Francisco Disability Cultural Center.”
At the live event in New York, a silent auction will take place that includes items such as a piece of the Blair Witch house, a tour of the Horror Archive in Pittsburgh, and a consultation with the Adams Family of Hellbender fame, among other memorabilia and experiences. All proceeds from the silent auction will go directly to the filmmakers of Access:Horror in an effort to build sustainability for filmmakers in the festival landscape.
Finally, the festival will feature a live performance premiere of a new song by acclaimed singer-songwriter Maya Azucena. That song is to be featured in Monstrous Me, the upcoming new documentary by festival founder Ariel Baska about their relationship with horror, disability, and the movie monster, Freddy Krueger. Monstrous Me is being produced by Lilly Wachowski.
Tickets will go on sale and the Access:Horror website will include the full list of films, special guests, and schedule on July 7th.
About Access: Horror
Access:Horror was created as a space to explore and celebrate the history, impact, and future of disability in the horror genre, through conversations, connections, and various artistic forms, including film. We acknowledge the interwoven nature of identity and media representation, and celebrate the many intersectional identities that have been at the heart of horror cinema since the beginning. We believe in horror as an agent of change, and seek to elevate discourse that uplifts marginalized creators and gives them space to create new work that imagines new worlds.
https://www.accesshorror.com/
Mo Moshaty is an acclaimed horror writer, lecturer, and producer whose work combines visceral storytelling with the psychological insight of her Cognitive Behavioral Therapy background. She has lectured internationally, including as a keynote speaker at Nightmares from Monkeypaw: A Jordan Peele Symposium (Prairie View A&M), No Return: A Yellowjackets Symposium (Horror Studies BAFSS Sig), The Whole Damn Swarm: Celebrating 30 Years of Candyman (University of California), and with the Centre for the History of the Gothic (University of Sheffield). Mo has also presented at the BFI, Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, and Final Girls Berlin Film Festival’s Brain Binge on women’s trauma in horror cinema, Cine-Excess on The Creepy Kid Horror Subgenre and Mother/Daughter Trauma in Horror, and Romancing the Gothic on Cosmic Horror’s Havoc on The Body Electric Her short film, 13 Minutes of Horror: Sci-Fi Horror, won the 2022 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Short Film. As a core producer with Nyx Horror Collective, Mo co-created the 13 Minutes of Horror Film Fest and partnered with Shudder in 2021 and 2022, while also establishing a Stowe Story Labs fellowship supporting women creatives over 40+ in horror. A member of the Black Women in Horror Class of 2023 and featured in 160 Black Women in Horror, Mo’s short fiction appears in A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales (Brigid’s Gate Press) and 206 Word Stories (Bag O’ Bones Press). Her debut novella, Love the Sinner, was released July 5, 2024, with Clairviolence: Tales of Tarot and Torment released in October 2025. The first of her five-volume non-fiction series, The Annex of the Obscure: The Afterlife, will be released in 2027 from Tenebrous Press. As the Editor-in-Chief of NightTide Magazine and founder of Mourning Manor Media, Mo champions marginalized voices in horror. Under her leadership, NightTide plans to launch a film festival in 2028, furthering her mission to reshape the genre through inclusivity and representation.
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