By O’Dell Isaac

Colorado Springs horror movie fans can enjoy an entire weekend of chills, jump-scares and laughs at the 10th annual “Three Nights of Horror” film festival at the Ivywild School auditorium.

Presented by the Independent Film Society of Colorado, the popular spookfest promises just about everything a horror fan could want, including classic scare flicks, gross-out movies and one film so poorly made it draws laughs instead of screams, according to event director Jeremy Nye.

“There has always been an interest in horror films,” Nye said. “We’ve always had a loyal following.”

Nye initially launched the film festival with an ulterior motive in mind, he said.

“When I first started the horror film festival 10 years ago, it was basically just me and a buddy, and we just started it to get local breweries to donate us beer,” Nye said. “But as we started collaborating with more people in the community, the festival started to grow. We had to move locations because we ran out of space.”

This year’s festival will include displays from local artists, door prizes from Beyond Killer Games, an in-person Q&A session with “Terrifier 2” producer Steve “Uncle Creepy” Barton and other treats.

Films include the ever-popular “Rocky Horror Picture Show”; “The Abominable Dr. Phibes,” starring horror legend Vincent Price; “The Lost Boys”; “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror”; and the 2024 “Nosferatu” remake.

In old-school, silent-movie fashion, the 1922 Nosferatu movie will be accompanied by a live piano score, played by local musician Mark Arnest.

Longtime horror-flick aficionados know that some movies are so bad, they almost qualify as comedies. The “Three Nights of Horror” festival typically shows at least one such movie, called a “talk-back” film, where yelling and ridiculing the film is encouraged, Nye said.

This year’s talk-back film is the “hilariously bad” “Horrors of Spider Island,” a 1960 West German production that has developed a cult following for its low quality, poor dubbing and bad acting.

“One of the more enjoyable movie viewing experiences in making fun of bad ones,” Nye said. “The talk-back films are always popular.”

Several independent short films will also be shown, according to Nye.

“There’s pretty much something for every kind of horror movie fan,” he said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”