Gore, gimps and a potty-mouthed magpie: welcome to the Lisbon horror festival where nightmares are a dream

The useful part

Now in its 20th edition, its directors say truly nerve-shredding cinema is its holy grail If horror happens in the dark, the midnight movie showing was once the perfect way of gauging the genre's health. "When we were a film club, our first ever cinema screening was Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer in 2003, and it was full," says Pedro Souto, co-director of Lisbon's horror-centric MotelX festival. I don't know why." He's right: the midnight slot I attend – of the gore-bathed Indonesian kung fu flick Ikatan Darah – is only half full.

How it works

• Flashy branding – a howling gimp and the signature X, both in inflatable PVC – is dotted on around city billboards.
• Only a few appreciative chuckles when meat-cleavers plunge into craniums suggest the old midnight spirit still lives.
• With the genre exploding in the 2010s and 2020s, and blockbusting grosses this year for the likes of Obsession and Backrooms, MotelX is able to gorge itself on this cultural jugular.
• Crowds seem abundant at most screenings, dominated by a heatwave look (dark singlets, shorts and sweaty tattoos) best described as "goth Decathlon".

Details worth keeping

"But you don't have that many people at midnight any more. No need to panic, though: horror has simply embraced the light. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/11/mo...