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<\/p>\nRegardless of its short history, the Berkeley High School Horror Film Festival is undeniably a staple of BHS\u2019 Halloween celebrations. This year\u2019s showing, held on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, was only the festival\u2019s fourth year being hosted. When the Oxford Theater\u2019s 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\u2019s title in blood-like letters. Two student MCs introduced the program, then the lights dimmed.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
When Marini teaches the horror genre, she highlights how sound design interacts with visuals. This year, her classes studied Ian Tuason\u2019s 2025 film \u201cUndertone,\u201d which leans heavily on sound to create fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne 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,\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t consider myself to be a sound designer, but this film allowed me to try something new, which was fun,\u201d Kabir Hermon, a BHS senior in IB Film HL, said. Hermon\u2019s film \u201cWhite Sheep\u201d was the final film in the program. It was the most labor intensive film Hermon has ever produced for the class.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very grateful and excited that this film that I spent so much time and effort on was accepted into the horror film festival,\u201d Hermon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While \u201cWhite Sheep\u201d was intended to be a commentary on Flock cameras, the festival\u2019s programs boasted a wide range of films. BHS sophomore Zachary Silvey\u2019s \u201cBoredom Kills\u201d used found footage to tell the story of two teenagers lost in the woods. \u201cSweet Tooth,\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cThe Man With No Face,\u201d used a faceless entity to induce fear; however, each took a different approach to the trope.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Senior Lilah Wolfson-Hecht\u2019s Advanced Studio Editing film \u201cMarionette\u201d starred BHS alumni Juniper Grace.\n <\/p>\n
Lilah Wolfson-Hecht\n <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw a lot of posters, and I thought it would be a fun event to go to with my friends,\u201d Selah Park-Manoff, a BHS sophomore, said. This outreach was especially important because of this year\u2019s off-campus location.<\/p>\n
In previous years, the festival was held in the Little Theater during class time. The theater\u2019s 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\u2019t incorporated into their schoolday, much fewer students were able to attend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was hard because we don\u2019t have a theater (on campus). And that definitely (resulted in) a lower (turnout) but I still think that the quality … was still there,\u201d 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\u2019t been able to do before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d Marini said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regardless of its short history, the Berkeley High School Horror Film Festival is undeniably a staple of BHS\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-520998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}