MotelX, Lisbon's horror film festival, is currently holding its 20th edition, featuring over 170 films from 40 countries over 11 days. The festival, which is Portugal's only one dedicated purely to horror, has seen large crowds at most screenings.
Co-director Pedro Souto observed a change in audience habits, noting that midnight screenings no longer attract as many people as they did in the past. He recalled a full house for a midnight screening of Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer in 2003, contrasting it with a recent half-full midnight slot for the Indonesian film Ikatan Darah.
MotelX originated from a private film club in the 1990s, aiming to address Portugal's limited tradition of domestic horror cinema. The festival seeks to inspire local filmmakers through an award for best unproduced screenplay and by showcasing Portuguese work, much of which is in the shorts category.
This year's lineup includes Mohammad Reza Ardalan’s Iranian film Poultry Farm and the US horror-comedy Drag. Other films featured are Corrin Evans’s 1990s-set Corpus, the 1968 Estonian classic Libahunt (Werewolf), the Basque-language portmanteau Gaua (Night), Laura Casabé’s The Virgin of the Quarry Lake, and Dario Russo's The Fox.