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The Tupelo Halloween Horror Film Festival is gearing up for its fifth consecutive year of thrills, chills, and blood-spills. This Friday the 23rd at 7 pm, at the Link Centre in Tupelo, theater-goers can treat themselves to an entire evening of spooktacular short films, for the frightfully low admission price of $10. Beer, soft drinks, and popcorn will also be available for purchase. Founder Glenn Payne started the festival in 2010 in order to do his part to foster the growing community of Mississippi filmmakers. “The intent behind this night is to bring the insanely talented various film-making groups from around the region together for the sake of networking and having a great time,” Glenn explained. Festival-goers are encouraged to dress up in their most ghoulish Halloween finery. “Our very first Halloween Festival drew nearly 500 costumed audience members. We want various directors to see the work of all these talented actors, DPs, sound -men and -women, writers, composers, grips, etc in an effort to allow people to continue to branch out and work with one another.”
By way of encouraging this crucial process of creative collaboration, the Festival also hosts an “Actor’s Bash” workshop the following day, also at the Link Centre. “We will invite actors, writers and directors to come and we’ll group up and have a director grab some actors and perform a writer’s scene,” Glenn said. “We’ll switch up in various arrangements and do several scenes/groupings. This will give the directors a chance to sample the stories and potential actors for casting their next film. Obviously it gives the writers and actors the same benefit of weighing in on the directors.”
Glenn is no stranger to the film festival circuit himself, having an extensive list of acting and directing credits in Mississippi-produced films, such as co-starring in Michael Williams‘ Ozland and having directed the 
science-fiction project Earthrise (both of which are now available on several nationally-distributed streaming and VOD sites.) Glenn’s horror spoof A Horror Movie took home the Audience Choice award at the 2014 Tupelo Horror Film Festival, and he returns this year with Stagrassle Paranormal and The Shelter. Several notable figures from the Oxford film-making community also have their work featured in the Festival this year, such as Laura Gatling-Cavett with her work on props and effects for Stagrassle Paranormal and Barry, and Matthew Graves for directing Barry (Matthew was winner of Best Film in last year’s Horror Fest for The Embalming, and is the recent recipient of an Emmy for his documentary on William Winters’ educational reforms program). Other entries include Leonard by Coley Bryant, Pinky Swear by Charles Jett, Scars by Maggie Bushway, Randy Grogan by Connor King, Sanctum by Chris Raines, and Lifeline by Curtis Everett. Come out and show your support for the eerily talented Mississippi film community, and scare up a frightfully good time… Halloween puns… More Halloween puns! 
