“It’s alive,” manically proclaims the mad scientist in James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), the source material which not only nuanced the Gothic but also gave birth to science fiction. And across the plentiful variations and imitations of this classic text and its themes, of course, body horror has given rise to affect our most primal fears and social conventions, setting the scene for 2025’s iteration of the Cine-Excess International Film Festival and Conference.
This year, we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985), a quintessential cult classic that blends dark comedy and body horror to push the very boundaries of generic acceptability. The film was created in tandem with producer Brian Yuzna, and Re-Animator’s success would inspire later Stuart Gordon horror films such as From Beyond (1986), whilst paving the way for Yuzna’s own directorial career, including Society (1989), Bride of Re-Animator (1990), and Return of the Living Dead III (1993). As part of this year’s festival, we are delighted that Re-Animator’s legendary producer Brian Yuzna is scheduled to be joining in person to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work on the film, whilst also receiving a posthumous award on behalf of the late Stuart Gordon.*
Re-Animator is not the only cult classic celebrating a milestone in 2025, however, with David Cronenberg’s Shivers (1975) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) both celebrating their fiftieth anniversaries, and George A. Romero’s Living Dead franchise marking the fortieth anniversary of Day of the Dead (1985) and the twentieth anniversary of Land of the Dead (2005). As a result, it is our honour to welcome the iconic cult film actor Lynn Lowry to this year’s festival, who will be receiving a Cine-Excess Lifetime Achievement Award for her role in Shivers, Romero’s The Crazies (1973) alongside other cult releases such as I Drink Your Blood (1971). Lynn Lowry will be accepting her Cine-Excess award and discussing her career with festival delegates in an exclusive streamed session hosted as part of this year’s event
Anniversaries aside, the unprecedented critical and commercial success of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024) has driven body horror to the forefront of knowing, mainstream visibility. In order to make sense of this phenomenon as well as other generic developments over the decades, we are delighted to welcome Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes as our keynote speaker. Dr Aldana Reyes is a founding member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, co-president of the International Gothic Association, and the author of such monographs as Contemporary Body Horror (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Gothic Cinema (Routledge, 2020), and Body Gothic: Corporeal Transgression in Contemporary Literature and Horror Film (University of Wales Press, 2014).
In addition to the emphasis on Re-Animator and contemporary body horror, this year’s call for papers invites contributors to consider case studies within an even wider range of different contexts that relate to the themes of “reanimating” and “reviving” cult film’s traditions, conventions, and (analogue) technologies. We would therefore welcome 20-minute papers or pre-constituted panels on the following topics:
- Re-Animator at 40: Critical Rejuvenations of the 1985 Cult Classic
- Surgical Siblings: Reanimating the Perverse Cinema of Brian Yuzna and Stuart Gordon
- From Frankenstein to Frank-N-Furter: 50 Years of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
- “Old Flesh Is Erotic Flesh”: Shivers, Cronenbergian Body Horror and Its Legacy
- Lynn Lowry: Enduring Legacies of a Cult Film Star
- My Body, My Trauma: Contemporary Feminist Revisions of the Unsightly
- Back from the Box: Super 8, Videotape and the Contemporary Lure of Dead Media
- The Power of Love: Back to the Future, Nostalgia and the Cult Hollywood Blockbuster
- More than Dead Objects: Reclaiming the “Victim” Paradigm in Cult and Horror Media
- “The Dead Will Walk the Earth”: George A. Romero’s Living Dead and Zombie Media
- Remakes and Reboots, Reimaginings and Requels: Reviving Cult and Horror Franchises
- Again and Again: Repeat Viewing and Replay Culture in Cult and Horror Media
- “Sleep All Day, Party All Night”: Undead Evolutions in Vampire Media
- From Script to Screen: Recovering the Screen- and Teleplay as Dead Object
- Magnifying the Maligned: Resuscitating the Neglected Texts of Cult and Horror Media
- Apparitions of the Past: Ghosts in Cult and Horror Media
- Weird Science: Science Fiction and the Gothic Tradition
- Cult of the Dead: Posthumous Recognition(s) in Cult and Horror Media
- Historical Mediations: Repeating the Past in Cult and Horror Media
- Animating Cult and Horror Media: Animation, Art and Creative Technique
- Resuscitating Dead Careers: Acting Comebacks and Cult Lookalikes on Screen
- Digging the Past: Unearthing the Hidden Histories of Cult and Horror Media
Cine-Excess 2025 invites proposals for either the online conference or in-person symposium. Participants should indicate their preference when submitting their proposal.
The online conference is expected to run for a minimum of two days on the week beginning Monday 20th October, with registration fees of £100 / £50 (concessions). Registration fees include virtual attendance at the conference, related streamed screenings and filmmaker talks.
The in-person symposium will be limited to a one-day event in Birmingham, UK on Friday 24th October, with registration fees of £150 / £100 (concessions). Registration fees include in-person attendance at the symposium and related cinema screenings, as well as access to the online components of Cine-Excess 2025.
Since 2007, Cine-Excess has developed and nurtured a reputation as an inclusive and safe space in which to present new work around global cult film cultures. We welcome submissions from emerging and established scholars, activists, filmmakers and community groups.
Please send a 300-word abstract and a short bio by Friday 15th August 2025 to:
John Atkinson
Editorial Lead of Cine-Excess
john.atkinson@cine-excess.co.uk
Dr Daniel Sheppard
Associate Director of Cine-Excess
daniel.sheppard@bcu.ac.uk
Professor Xavier Mendik
Director of Cine-Excess
xavier.mendik@cine-excess.co.uk
Final decisions will be communicated no later than Friday 22nd August 2025.
We will subsequently invite a limited number of participants to rework their papers for inclusion in the eighth edition of the Cine-Excess journal, set for publication in 2026.
*All advertised Cine-Excess Guests of Honour are subject to availability, and website listings will be updated regularly to reflect their current schedules.
