The Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival was started by Shawn Drywa. The 2002 festival celebrated the 75th anniversary of Providence's historic Columbus Theatre and attracted record crowds to the venue.
Rolfe Kanefsky's
Tomorrow by Midnight made its East Coast premiere at the festival and won "Best Picture". The award for best
short film was a tie between Patrick Cannon's ''Timmy's Wish'' and Tyler Polhemus's
Off. A restored print of
F.W. Murnau's
Nosferatu (1922) was also screened at the event. Festival director Shawn Drywa presented the winners with a small statuette "a gold witch on a broom mounted on a pumpkin sprouting from a solid marble base". The awards ceremony also had a Halloween-themed fashion show as a fundraiser for the Women's Coalition Against Domestic Violence. At the 2003 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival the Avenet Images film
Ghost of the Needle won the award for "Best Feature". The award for "Best Short" was a tie between Andy Lalaino's
Filthy and Nicholas Davis'
William Wilson.
Headhunter, directed by Adam Alleca, won the "Best Special Effects" award and Georg Koszulinski won "Best Director" for his zombie film
Blood of the Beast. The 2004 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival received 243 official entries, and 12 non-competition films, from 5 countries and 14 U.S. states. The festival selected 27 of these films to be shown at the Columbus Theatre. Six festival entries made their U.S. premiere and five made their world premiere. Among the films being shown was
Tales of the Uncanny (1919), a five-part German horror film, with live musical accompaniment by Boston composer James Rohr. It was followed by
Shelf Life and
Freak Out (2004). The latter film would go on to win a number of festival awards. Other selected films included
Dead & Breakfast,
Graveyard Alive,
The Last Horror Movie,
London Voodoo, and ''
There's Something Out There''. Proceeds from the event went towards the Patricia Neal Scholarship Fund to help college students study film. Ric Rebello, an independent filmmaker and instructor at
Bristol Community College, took over as festival director in 2005.
Hellbent, reportedly the first-ever gay slasher film, premiered at the 2005 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival Festival submissions rose dramatically from 150 in 2006 to 383 entries in 2011. The 2006 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival was covered by three radio stations and four horror websites. Among the winning films were
Grace by Paul Solet (Best Short),
Die You Zombie Bastards! by Caleb Emerson (Best New England),
Bone Sickness by Brian Paulin (Best Makeup FX), and
Camp Blood: The Musical by Tanner Barklow, Jefferson Craig and Thomas Hughes (Audience Award).
Bed Bugs was also one of the films selected by the festival. Special guests for the festival included
Gary Howard Klar (
Day of the Dead),
Paul Kratka (
Friday the 13th Part III), and
The Atlantic Paranormal Society.
The Terror Factor, a comedy slasher film directed by Garry Medeiros, was chosen out of 40 other entries to win the "Best of New England" award.
Family Portrait, produced by Pittsburgh filmmakers Matt Bonacci and Anthony Colliano, were among the multiple horror shorts and
zombie films shown that year. At the 2008 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival, 47 films were selected from over 250 submissions. Among these were
Blackspot, a New Zealand horror film which had won an award at the RIIFF two months earlier, and Scott Bunt's surreal
Sea of Dust then making its U.S. premiere. The latter film tied with the Jung Brothers'
Epitaph for "Best Picture". The
Providence Journal considered another New Zealand film,
Paul Campion's
Eel Girl, to be the stand out film of seven horror shorts shown at
Bell Street Chapel and later won the "Best Short" category. The publication also reviewed Gary Fierro's ''Pickman's Model'', based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story
of the same name, Devi Snively's
Death in Charge and Ryan Spindell's
Kirksdale, with the latter two films receiving high praise. Other films at the festival were
Christian Vampires from Suburbia,
A Hood in the Woods,
Trailer Park of Terror and
Jeffrey Schwarz award-winning documentary
Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story. Also at the event were co-directors Joe DiGiorgi and Anthony Salerno of Headline Studio, where they promoted
Sion Sono's
Exte: Hair Extensions, and author K. Patrick Malone. The 2009 festival saw the world premieres of
Crooked Lane,
Happy Face,
Broom Ride to Salem and
Maggots;
Crooked Lane, directed by Chase Bailey, went on to win the "Best New England Film" award while director Franklin P. Laviola's won the "Directorial Discovery" award for
Happy Face. The opening night of the 2010 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival featured a special world premiere of
Roger Corman's
The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), recently restored version and in
high definition, starring
Vincent Price. Fifty films were selected out of 347 submissions with many making their international or U.S. premieres. These included two award-winning short films: Brett Foraker's
Natural Selection, starring
Simon Callow and
James D'Arcy, which had won first prize for "Best Short" at the 2010 RIIFF, and Krishnendu Majumdar's
The Happiness Salesman, starring
Christopher Eccleston, which was named best narrative short at the RIIFF's Roving Eye Film Festival. Michael Swertfager's animated short
The Tell-Tale Heart, a tribute to
the popular short story by
Edgar Allan Poe, won "Best Animation". In addition to the annual H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tour was a "Zombiethon Battle" presented by the
Society for Creative Anachronism, which displayed
heavy and light-armored combat, as well as a "Zombie Battle Royale" open to the public. The 2011 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival saw 383 entries from countries including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, and the United States. The festival selected 42 of these films which were shown from October 27–30, drawing a large audience despite severe weather and power outages. Among the festival selections were
Absentia,
An Evening With My Comatose Mother,
Cabine of the Dead,
Hatch,
Paths of Hate,
State of Emergency, and an exclusive screening of
Wes Craven's
Scream 4. The RIIHFF's "Behind the Camera Lens" featured actor
William Forsythe, director
Glenn Ciano, and producer Chad A. Verdi of the horror film
Inkubus. The cast and crew from eight of the international entries attended the festival including director Kevin and Shanna MacDonald ("Beg"), Marc Masciandaro ("Imposter"), producer Augustin Fuentes and writer-director Devi Snively ("Last Seen on Delores Street"), Matteo Bernardini ("Vampyre Compendium"). The annual H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tour was also sold-out. In spite of the
dangerous weather conditions posed by the approaching
Hurricane Sandy, the 2012 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival went ahead as scheduled. George T. Marshall, longtime executive director of the
Rhode Island International Film Festival, was interviewed on
WPRI-TV's
The Rhode Show. The 2012 festival offered feature films
Darren Lynn Bousman's
The Barrens, starring
Stephen Moyer and
Mia Kirshner, Richard Griffin's
Exhumed with Evalena Marie and
Sarah Nicklin, and Casey Walker's
A Little Bit Zombie, an award-winning comedy horror with Kristopher Turner,
Crystal Lowe, and
Shawn Roberts. The Canadian documentary
Nightmare Factory, days after making its U.S. premiere at the
Screamfest Horror Film Festival, which followed Hollywood special effects artists
Greg Nicotero,
Howard Berger and
Robert Kurtzman, was also shown at the festival. The festival horror shorts included "Attack of the Brain Suckers" and "Cadaver", with
Christopher Lloyd and
Kathy Bates respectively, international short films
Vadim from
Austria,
247°F from
Georgia, and
Wonderland, A True Story from
Kuwait, the latter film adapted from
Lewis Carroll's ''
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass''. == Official selections ==