The Warren County Public Library hosted “Kinda Spoopy,” a film festival highlighting independent horror creations from across the globe, on Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Capitol Arts Center.

Along with the WCPL, “Kinda Spoopy” was presented by “Kiiinda Spoopy III,” an annual music festival in Adams, Tennesse, that celebrates all things creepy. 

The night’s showing had a lineup of six short films including “A Bone to Chew,” “ADAM2,” “Need A Light,” “The Hobbyist,” “Under My Skin,” “A Nightcare on Elm Street” and one feature-length movie, “Massacre at Femur Creek”. 

The “Kiiinda Spoopy” website states that “Sitting in between horror and humor, fun and fear…there sits a space in perfect balance of all things Halloweeny.” For this reason, many of the films chosen for the film festival were intentionally silly or bad.

“I think the nice thing about horror is you can like it if it’s really good, you can like it if it’s really bad,” event organizer Nate Morguelan said.

The festival also showcased a wide array of unique narratives in the films chosen.

“Watching horror movies, there’s so many different stories you can tell, it’s not just guts and gore and blood,” Amarah Pryor-Wells, a freshman film major said. “You can actually have like subtext and things with it.”

Several attendees of “Kinda Spoopy” voiced their appreciation for the diversity of stories and the platform given to films made outside of a Hollywood studio. Moviegoers emphasized the importance of independent filmmaking and its unique creative abilities.

“Mainstream Hollywood has to appeal to everybody, right?” Gatlin Milam, an attendee of the event, said. “The indie horror film scene is just raw. It’s just got a different feel to it.”

An overall sense of community was something several moviegoers noted about the night. 

“Once you get into the [indie horror film] community, it’s all just a bunch of really cool, fun people who want to share their interests,” attendee Kendall Hughey said.

Festivalgoers expressed a strong sense of camaraderie among everyone in the theater. Several attendees repeated similar sentiments of being part of a “tight-knit” and “diverse” group centered around horror.

“I just love how welcoming the community is to different kinds of people,” Lilly McGill, 17, an attendee of the event, said.

News Reporter Anthony Clauson can be reached at [email protected].