Regardless of its short history, the Berkeley High School Horror Film Festival is undeniably a staple of BHS’ Halloween celebrations. This year’s showing, held on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, was only the festival’s fourth year being hosted. When the Oxford Theater’s doors opened, student ushers were already waiting at the door to welcome festival attendees and hand out printed programs. The friends, family, and students that shuffled into the theater were welcomed with a red screen proudly spelling out the festival’s title in blood-like letters. Two student MCs introduced the program, then the lights dimmed.
Hosted by Amanda Marini, a BHS video production teacher, the festival consisted of 15 films made by students in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Film HL (Higher Level) and Advanced Video Production classes. With a run time of one hour and 17 minutes, the film festival attracted students and parents throughout BHS.
When Marini teaches the horror genre, she highlights how sound design interacts with visuals. This year, her classes studied Ian Tuason’s 2025 film “Undertone,” which leans heavily on sound to create fear.
“One of the big focuses to get students ready for the horror film is to make sure they have a strong understanding of how important sound design is, especially for horror, but in film in general,” Marini said. Every student in her class was required to submit a film to the festival, and Marini emphasized that each project focus heavily on sound design.
“I don’t consider myself to be a sound designer, but this film allowed me to try something new, which was fun,” Kabir Hermon, a BHS senior in IB Film HL, said. Hermon’s film “White Sheep” was the final film in the program. It was the most labor intensive film Hermon has ever produced for the class.
“I was very grateful and excited that this film that I spent so much time and effort on was accepted into the horror film festival,” Hermon said.
While “White Sheep” was intended to be a commentary on Flock cameras, the festival’s programs boasted a wide range of films. BHS sophomore Zachary Silvey’s “Boredom Kills” used found footage to tell the story of two teenagers lost in the woods. “Sweet Tooth,” by BHS sophomore Alice Turner, used unsettling practical effects to take a terrifying spin on a sugar addiction. Many of the films, such as junior Zachary Kelso’s “The Man With No Face,” used a faceless entity to induce fear; however, each took a different approach to the trope.
All the volunteers at the festival were film students in either IB Film HL or Advanced Studio Editing. Student panels judged the submissions and built the festival program. Students also made bulletins and posters and cut trailers, in the hopes of encouraging their peers to attend the festival.
“I saw a lot of posters, and I thought it would be a fun event to go to with my friends,” Selah Park-Manoff, a BHS sophomore, said. This outreach was especially important because of this year’s off-campus location.
In previous years, the festival was held in the Little Theater during class time. The theater’s seats were easily filled, as many teachers brought their classes to the screenings to celebrate the spooky season. This year, the Little Theater is under construction, and the film festival had to be held at the Oxford Theater after school. Since the festival wasn’t incorporated into their schoolday, much fewer students were able to attend.
“It was hard because we don’t have a theater (on campus). And that definitely (resulted in) a lower (turnout) but I still think that the quality ... was still there,” Nico Schmidt, a festival MC and senior in IB Film HL, said. Nevertheless, the change of venue came with a key benefit: it provided parents with the opportunity to watch the program alongside their kid and other BHS students, something they hadn’t been able to do before.
“I love when you have all those kids packed into a theater, because the energy of a large group of people engaging in a film all together is not the same as watching it alone, or in the dark, or in your classroom,” Marini said.
The film festival provides students with the opportunity to engage with film at BHS in a communal way, while also giving the video production students the opportunity to showcase their hard work. Despite its struggles with location, the horror film festival remains an institution of the BHS Halloween spirit.