Halloween International Film Festival 2026 Tickets On Sale Now
The Halloween International Film Festival returns to the historic and haunted Outer Banks of North Carolina for its 7th incarnation in October 2026, and advance tickets are on sale now online.
Filmmakers are invited to submit their independent horror and Halloween-themed shorts and feature films for consideration for the 7th Halloween International Film Festival through FilmFreeway. The final deadline for submissions is August 13. (Click here to submit a film.)
In addition to selected film screenings, the festival also showcases Q&A panels with attending filmmakers, nightly meet and greets, photo ops on the Orange Carpet, and more, all once again taking place as part of the town of Manteo’s Halloween Island festivities, during which area restaurants, bars, and hotels transform into Halloween pop-ups for October.
This year’s festival takes place in the indoor theater at Roanoke Island Festival Park, where history comes alive with in-character costumed interpreters and interactive exhibits exploring the earliest English colonists to arrive on these shores and the mystery of The Lost Colony, anchored by the Elizabeth II, a working life-size replica of a 16th Century sailing ship. The park also honors and highlights the indigenous Algonquian people who first called these shores home and preceded the arrival of the first English colonists by centuries, as the town of Manteo itself is named after a native man who returned to England for a time with the English explorers and became a translator for agents of the crown.
Known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, North Carolina’s Outer Banks is recognized as one of the most haunted places in America, with thousands of shipwrecks resting off the coast of these barrier islands. Roanoke Island, where Manteo and Festival Park are located, is the site of the ill fated first English settlement in North America in 1587, and its more than 100 colonists that vanished without explanation, today referred to as The Lost Colony, America’s first unsolved mystery.
The 7th Halloween International Film Festival is happening October 23-24, 2026 at Roanoke Island Festival Park in Manteo, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, sponsored by the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, Gallop Funeral Services, Weird Darkness, Let’s Talk Terror, Haunted Pamlico Film Festival, Backwoods Haunt, Four Sea-Sons Beach Cottage Rental, Halloween & Costume Association United Bank, Lake Hickory Haunts, and the Outer Banks Halloween Parade, an OBX Entertainment production, presented by Halloween Daily News.
Single day tickets, 2-day passes, and VIP 2-day passes that include an official poster print and two raffle tickets are available now online here.
RSVP on the official Facebook event page.
