A HORROR film festival which aims to celebrate the 'crack of bone and spill of blood' is coming to Bradford next week.

Haunted House FearFest, the brainchild of Bradford man Anthony Kelly, a filmmaker and lover of the horror genre, will held at The Idle Draper pub on Friday, March 18, and Saturday, March 19.

Anthony explains: "Haunted House FearFest is about grassroots independent filmmaking.

"We celebrate the crack of bone and spill of blood. We aim to bring independent filmmaking to the city of Bradford and scare the crap out of people.

"For this, we are looking for up and coming independent filmmakers who have a passion and love for this genre.

"We want to share our love of horror and all of its sub-genres including: Giallo, Über violence, monsters, psychos and supernatural, from nerve-shredding drama to blunt force trauma.

"All types of film from shorts and features, including music videos, experimental and documentaries, as long as it features terror and blood – we want to screen it!"

The Haunted House FearFest launched in 2019 at The Park Hotel, Morecambe, one of the most haunted venues in the UK.

Anthony, who is originally from Bradford but lived in Germany for 18 years, said after Covid shut down venues in 2020, the event went online with a 2021 edition taking place on streaming platform XERB.TV.

With the aim to host a live event in 2022, Anthony explained why The Idle Draper was chosen this year's festival.

"I returned home from Germany in March 2020 because of Covid. I'm a beer aficionado so I tried some beers from owner Jim Emmett's micro-brewery at The Idle Draper.

"We got to talking about the FearFest and he said 'why don't you do something like that here?' The micro-brewery is called Bone Idle, so it's perfect as beer and fear work well together.

"It has a cinema lounge upstairs and two large screen TVs downstairs, so it'll be great for screening films by our independent filmmakers."

Grim Reaper Awards will be handed out as part of the festival with the main six categories being Best Films Under 5, 10, 15, 20 and 60 minutes and Best Feature Film.

Additional awards include Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Music, Best Script, SFX Make-Up, Best Actor and Best Actress as well as Best Kill, Most Gore, Best Villain and Biggest Scare.

The free event, which will be held from 6pm to midnight on the Friday and 4pm to midnight on the Saturday, will feature short film sessions throughout the evening with a feature film at 10pm.