‘'Missing Child Videotape', 'Marshmallow', 'Gaua', 'Roqia', 'La virgen de la tosquera' and 'New Group', first films confirmed for the 2025 Molins de Rei Horror Film Festival.
This year's image, signed by Juan Sanmiguel and Jordi Pastor, claims the collective experience of terror in the cinema and invites the most emblematic ghost of J-Horror to take a seat.
Molins de Rei, September 4, 2025 — The Molins de Rei Horror Film Festival 2025 presents its image and a first taste of this year's programming. The 44th edition will be held from November 7 to 16 with the leitmotif “J-Horror, beyond scares”, and will thus commemorate the 25th anniversary of the premiere of Ju-on, by Japanese director Takashi Shimizu, celebrating with this anniversary a genre that has left an indelible mark on the history of horror cinema on an international scale.
It is already known poster of this edition, which pays homage to the place where we experience the magic of cinema and stands out for a pictorial finish with caricatured realism and a nod to this year's leitmotif included. In addition, the festival unveils a first preview of the films that will be part of its programming, offering an early taste of the terror that attendees will experience this November at the Teatre de La Peni in Molins de Rei. They are the Japanese Missing Child Videotape (Spanish premiere) and New Group, the United States Marshmallow (Spanish premiere), the Algerian Roqia, the Spanish one Gaua, and Argentina The Virgin of the Tosquera.
Room full of nightmares. With this year's poster, creators Juan Sanmiguel and Jordi Pastor wanted to take an X-ray of the cinema as a magical space, where the collective experience makes the film take on strength and become ingrained in our brains. The representation is not without irony when it comes to showing some of the contemporary problems between spectators and viewers, but it also has an informal and fun portrait of the diversity of the public that passes through TerrorMolins every year. "The decision to work with a pictorial finish, a caricatured realism and a composition with a lot of weight, comes from supporting art made by humans and not by Artificial Intelligence", explain Sanmiguel and Pastor, thus claiming the value of the creative craft.
As a nod to the leitmotif of this edition, the authors incorporate an element of J-Horror: “Fear, terror, horror… emotions that we can safely enjoy inside a movie theater.” Thus, the young and terrifying Toshio Saeki of Ju-on sticks its head out of the seats to give us a good scare. “J-Horror has given us images that once experienced in the cinema, remain impregnated in our being and no matter how much the lights turn on, they won't go away, they are already part of our visual culture.”
Juan Sanmiguel and Jordi Pastor are illustrators, comic book writers and teachers at the Joso School, Barcelona's Comic and Visual Arts Center.
Six titles to open your mouth. The 44th edition of TerrorMolins is starting to take shape with a first preview of films that, as expected, includes two proposals coming directly from Japan. On the one hand, a premiere in Spain will be screened, Missing Child Videotape, feature film debut of Ryota Kondo. The Japanese filmmaker explores disturbing disappearances and family traumas with echoes that refer to Lake Mungo i The Ring. You can also see New Group, a surreal and poignant piece about teenagers subjected to a disturbing obedience; with this film, Yuta Shimotsu —director of Best Wishes to All— revives the spirit of J-Horror and confirms its talent for generating nightmares.
Coming from the USA, Marshmallow puts a twist on the clichéd narrative of summer camps with a slasher which combines mad doctors, disturbing dreams and touches of science fiction. The debut of Daniel DelPurgatorio also premieres in Spain with a proposal that celebrates terror and its possibilities. From Argentina, The Virgin of the Tosquera, the new work of Laura Casabe (Those who return), a wild story of teenage obsessions set in the midst of the corralito crisis. The film adapts two stories by Mariana Enríquez, one of the most powerful Latin American voices in horror literature. Paul Urkijo Alijo (Ironworker, Irate) is established as one of the great names in contemporary folk horror with Gaua, a fable set in the 17th century, full of witchcraft and presences that move in the shadows. And finally, from Algeria, Roqia proposes a story of possessions narrated from the perspective of an amnesiac man who returns to a home full of mysteries. The film by Yanis Koussim, which refers to references such as Goodnight Mommy, will arrive in Molins after its passage through Venice Critics' Week.