Popcorn Frights Film Festival, Florida’s largest and most respected genre film event, announces its first wave of programming for its third annual celebration of genre-twisting cinema, occurring August 11 through 17, 2017, at Miami’s landmark O Cinema Wynwood theater.

Popcorn Frights first wave of programming serves up a fearsome feast of werewolves, zombies, psycho slashers, minotaurs, and all the sinister things that go bump in the night. Opening Night features a triple-bill event kicking-off with the Florida Premiere of Tragedy Girls, a fiendishly twisted and deliriously fun love letter to slasher movies starring Brianna Hildebrand (Deadpool) and Alexandra Shipp (X-Men: Apocalypse). The films rounding out the Opening Night event will be announced in coming weeks.

Featured as the Festival’s Centerpiece is the Florida Premiere of Mayhem starring a hammer-wielding Steven Yeun (“The Walking Dead”) in a pedal to the metal savage thriller that presents a wonderfully violent middle finger to corporate culture.

Other buzzy titles in the lineup include the Final Cut US Premiere of the outrageous horror-comedy Another Wolfcop, home invasion genre-bender Better Watch Out starring Olivia DeJonge (The Visit), Mickey Keating’s slasherfest Psychopaths, zombie love story It Stains the Sands Red, head-splitting gore flick Game of Death, horror rom-com Dave Made A Maze, and the spellbinding thriller Still/Born.

Popcorn Frights will also launch its inaugural “Homegrown: 100% Pure Fresh Squeezed Florida Horror” sidebar that is dedicated to renewing and reinvigorating the audience’s engagement with Miami’s local filmmakers and Florida’s homegrown talent. This platform is designed to be a springboard for new filmmakers from Florida and a space that helps forge a new direction for Miami’s genre scene by further cultivating and nurturing its growing film community. Films featured in the inaugural edition include the Florida Premiere of Rodney Ascher’s Primal Scream, as well as the short films Midnight Service, Buzzcut, It Began Without Warning, and Pandemonium.

It’s time for rampage. It’s time for chaos. It’s time for gory fun. It’s time for Popcorn Frights!

ANOTHER WOLFCOP (read our review)

Directed by Lowell Dean Canada | 82 minutes | 2017
FINAL CUT US PREMIERE. Alcoholic werewolf cop Lou Garou springs into action when an eccentric businessman with evil intentions seduces his town’s residents with a new brewery in this outrageous horror-comedy sequel.

BETTER WATCH OUT (read our review)

Directed by Chris Peckover US | 85 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. On a quiet suburban street tucked within a ‘safe neighborhood’, a babysitter (played by The Visit star Olivia DeJonge) must defend a twelve-year-old boy from strangers breaking into the house, only to discover that this is far from a normal home invasion.

DAVE MADE A MAZE (read our review)

Directed by Bill Watterson US | 80 minutes | 2017
SOUTH FLORIDA PREMIERE. Driven by an inner need, frustrated artist Dave begins building a fort in his living room. But as he completes construction, Dave becomes trapped inside by the dangerous creatures he’s designed, forcing his girlfriend to mount a rescue mission.

GAME OF DEATH (read our review)

Directed by Sebastien Landry & Laurence Morais-Lagace France-Canada-USA | 73 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. When seven suburban millennials play the “Game of Death,” they soon get caught up in its high stakes, which are literally life or death. Confronted with a grim choice–kill or be killed–the friends gruesomely realize that none of them are safe.

IT STAINS THE SANDS RED

Directed by Colin Minihan US | 92 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. In the throes of a zombie apocalypse, a troubled woman from Las Vegas with a dark past finds herself stranded in the desert with a lone and ravenous zombie on her tail.

MAYHEM (read our review)

Directed by Joe Lynch
US | 86 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. What happens when people lose all their inhibitions? This blood-soaked gonzo thriller offers a glimpse as a virus that erases impulse control breaks out at a law office, where a disgruntled employee and a dissatisfied client go looking for some justice.

PSYCHOPATHS (read our review)

Directed by Mickey Keating US | 85 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. When an unidentified madman is sent to the electric chair, it triggers a sort of Mischief Night for a group of serial killers out in an entire city. An escaped mental patient, a beautiful seductress, a strangler who preys on unsuspecting women, and an enigmatic masked contract killer run amok in Mickey Keating’s new slasherfest.

STILL/BORN

Directed by Brandon Christensen US | 84 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. When Mary loses one of her twins during childbirth she feels a devastating loss that spirals her into madness. She begins to suspect a sinister force is after her surviving child that will stop at nothing to take it from her.

TRAGEDY GIRLS  (read our review)

Directed by Tyler Macintyre Canada-US | 96 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. Budding social-media stars Sadie and McKayla are desperate for greater fame. But big ambitions require big plans, and the two think they’ve hit on a good one: force a serial killer to tutor them in his craft so they can become horror legends.

PRIMAL SCREAM

Directed by Rodney Ascher
US | 30 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. Acclaimed filmmaker Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare) has created a singular hybrid of documentary and horror that explores how pop culture can scar you for life.

BUZZCUT

Directed by Jon Rhoads & Mike Marrero US | 9 minutes | 2017
MIAMI PREMIERE. Jane is out to get a buzzcut and ends up dealing with apocalyptic matters of a special kind while trying to fix the haircut her barber botched so that she can get laid before she dies.

IT BEGAN WITHOUT WARNING

Directed by Jessica Curtright & Santiago C. Tapia US | 6 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. A body horror-tinged tale that crawls.

THE MIDNIGHT SERVICE

Directed by Brett Potter & Dean Colin Marcial US | 10 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. A true-crime home invasion episode about an urban legend, notorious criminal, occult pop culture, and first-hand account of the unknown.

PANDEMONIUM

Directed by Luis Mendez
US | 15 minutes | 2017
FLORIDA PREMIERE. As a catastrophic epidemic devastates the world, a man survivor fights to save his daughter from the mysterious virus that has already consumed his wife.