THEME OF 2026: Simply The Pest
They’re in your walls, your basements, your bedframe… they’re crawling, and they’re eating her. And then they’re going to eat me! OOOOOOOOOH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD! It’s an infestation. A chittering, skittering, pulsating mass of creatures with too many legs, too many eyes, and far too much enthusiasm for your personal space. This year, the underworld of vermin rises up, overrunning the screens with everything that swarms, bites, burrows, infects, gnaws, and refuses to die no matter how much poison you pump into it.
Welcome to a festival where the pests aren’t just background noise… They’re the stars. Rats with revolutions on their whiskers. Cockroaches that outlive empires. Bedbugs that suck more than just your blood. Worms whispering in the soil, parasites plotting from within, wasps building palaces in your attic. From microscopic threats to apocalyptic plagues, we celebrate the creatures that humanity has spent millennia trying (and failing) to eliminate.
Because pests are more than nuisances. They’re metaphors. They’re mirrors. They’re the things we try to ignore until they crawl across the floor in broad daylight and remind us that we’re not nearly as in control as we’d like to think. They survive every boot heel, every flamethrower, every extinction event we throw at them. They’re the ultimate underdogs… Tiny anarchists gnawing away at the foundations of civilization.
This is BUTFF 2026: a hive, a nest, a writhing ecosystem of films that itch, sting, and infect the imagination. Prepare yourself for parasitic horrors, rodent rampages, insect invasions, and infestations both literal and metaphorical. You can fumigate all you like, but it’s too late. They’re already here. And they’re simply the pest. Better than all the rest…
Creepies | Jeff Leroy | 2004 | USA
Night of the Creeps | Fred Dekker | 1986 | USA
Rats: Night of Terror (Rats – Notte di terrore) | Bruno Mattei | 1984 | ITA
Slither | James Gunn | 2006 | USA
Slugs (Slugs, muerte viscosa) | Juan Piquer Simón | 1988 | ESP
Stung | Benni Diez | 2015 | GER
The Fly | David Cronenberg | 1986 | USA
The Giant Spider Invasion (Cinemaatjes Experience) | Bill Rebane | 1975 | USA
Ticks | Tony Randel | 1993 | USA
Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead | Noboru Iguchi | 2011 | JPN