Invitation to the Reaper Film Festival
Women in Film proudly introduces “The Scythe Award”
Los Angeles Genre Festival Combines Global Streaming Access and Women in Film Collaboration with a Fully Immersive Halloween Event
The old catch-22s became paywalls. We built Reaper to help filmmakers break through them and reach real opportunities on the other side.”— Judah Ray, Festival Director, Reaper Film Festival
LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, September 17, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Reaper Film Festival, an emerging Los Angeles horror and genre event launched by working professionals, is set to debut with its first screening and awards ceremony on Oct. 22, 2026, at The Earl in Los Angeles. The festival centers on a core commitment: every film chosen as an Official Selection gets non-exclusive worldwide distribution via Bloodstream TV, ensuring selected shorts don’t just play once in a theater.
The Oct. 22 gathering is crafted as a full-on experience rather than a standard evening of passive viewing. Between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m., The Earl’s three screening rooms and outdoor patio will be transformed into a Halloween-inspired haunted attraction, complete with horror décor, scare actors, and an audience invited to laugh, scream, and react openly. The schedule features three separate 45-minute blocks of films, with built-in intermissions intended for mingling, networking, and discovering new talents.
The evening includes costumes, a full bar, a silent costume competition, audience engagement, award presentations, prize raffles, and a collective toast to cap off the night. Reaper encourages crowd participation during screenings, offering filmmakers a rare opportunity to gauge immediate, unfiltered audience reactions—something a traditional festival setting rarely delivers.
Between segments, filmmakers, actors, producers, distributors, invited industry figures, and up-and-coming creators will have structured time to connect. With attendance capped at just 200 people, the event maintains an intimate atmosphere that fosters genuine conversations among seasoned professionals, studio representatives, indie filmmakers, and first-time directors alike.
The festival was conceived on the principle that a film festival’s most valuable moments often occur after the credits roll—when a filmmaker meets a producer, an actor connects with a director, a writer finds a future collaborator, or two strangers decide to make movies together for years to come.
The goal is an evening that functions equally as a film festival, an industry mixer, and a Halloween celebration: a chance to discover fresh work, celebrate the horror genre, and forge the kinds of unexpected professional and creative partnerships that could spark the next big project.
This experience is matched with a firm commitment to filmmakers. Reaper deliberately keeps submission prices low, openly shares its judging criteria, and ensures that being selected carries real weight. The Grand Prize winner earns the chance to pitch a feature film directly to Bloodstream TV and Studio Dome for potential funding and development, alongside industry consultations, the Reaper trophy, and a featured spot on the Bloodstream TV homepage.
“Independent filmmakers are still fighting the same catch-22. The old gatekeepers have been replaced by paywalls,” said Judah Ray, festival director and founder of A-Level Pictures. “We kept Reaper’s entry fees low because filmmakers should not have to spend a fortune just to get a foot in the door. An Official Selection gives them a live Los Angeles audience, real industry access, the opportunity to earn from a short film that may otherwise never make money, and, most importantly, the chance to take a film that might normally reach only a small audience and put it in front of viewers worldwide.”
“Short filmmakers have very few real opportunities to monetize their work. Reaper is built to change that,” said David Josh Lawrence, founder of Reaper Film Festival and Head of Acquisitions at Studio Dome. “Through BloodStream TV, filmmakers can reach a wider audience, generate revenue, and learn how distribution works without compromising what makes their voices unique.”
Reaper is additionally debuting The Scythe Award, presented by Women In Film, for films directed and/or produced by a woman. The winner receives one-on-one sessions with Bloodstream TV programmer Heidi Honeycutt and producer/casting director Kimberly Skyrme, a professional pitch deck from Deck Syndicate, VIP festival access, and additional prizes and perks.
Screenwriters have their own dedicated route in: every submitted script is read and rated, the top five finalists get one-on-one consultations and first-look consideration from the festival team and partners, and the winning screenplay is revealed live during the event.
The 2026 jury includes a special Scream Queen Judge to be named later. Joining her are Reaper judges: Marcus J. McGill, executive producer of Terrifier; James Cullen Bressack of I Have Proof; Jason Neese of The Umbrella Academy; Kimberly Skyrme of Cut Shoot Kill; Jesse Kove of Scream Boat; Gigi Saul Guerrero of The Purge and Bingo Hell; Jonathan Martin, founder of FilmQuest; Michael Yedwab of Monster Party; Rachel Paulson of Stuck; JP Ouellette of Affection; David M. Parks of Static Codes; Michael Pickle of The Dead Place; and Sunny Zhao of The Gift.
The festival is presented by Judah Ray of A-Level Pictures, David Josh Lawrence of Studio Dome and Bloodstream TV, and Claire McLeod Hill of Controlled Chaos and Top of the Hill Productions. By linking Bloodstream TV and Studio Dome for distribution and development, Reaper directly connects its live event to tangible opportunities that extend well beyond the screening room.
Reaper also makes its judging process public. Every eligible film and screenplay is watched or read in its entirety and assigned to at least two independent reviewers. First-round review is conducted blind wherever practical; entries are scored against a defined rubric, and significant scoring disagreements trigger an additional review before finalist deliberation. No algorithms. No skim-and-score. The goal is simple: the work should matter more than the name attached to it.
Submissions are open until Oct. 14 via FilmFreeway for completed horror and horror-adjacent short films under 15 minutes, The Scythe Award category, and original short horror and horror-adjacent screenplays of 10 pages or fewer. Attendance is encouraged but not required to be judged, selected, win, or receive applicable distribution.
About Reaper Film Festival
The Reaper Film Festival is an independent Los Angeles horror and genre festival founded by filmmakers to create practical opportunities for emerging filmmakers and screenwriters. Reaper combines live exhibition, transparent judging, worldwide streaming distribution, industry access, and an immersive event experience. Its inaugural event takes place Oct. 22, 2026, from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. at The Earl in Los Angeles.
Judah Ray
Reaper Film Festival LLC
info@rprff.com
