What started as a one-night showcase of scary cinema in a downtown bar, the Knoxville Horror Film Festival has become one of Knoxville’s most anticipated film events.

This year, the festival runs Oct. 15 through Oct. 19.

Local filmmaker William Mahaffey founded the festival in 2009 after graduating from college and making short horror films of his own.

“After I graduated, I was making horror short films and submitting them to festivals and attending other film festivals, and I wanted to bring something like what I experienced at those festivals to Knoxville,” Mahaffey said. “It started out as a one-night short film festival at Pilot Light in 2009, and each year we expanded.”

Over time the festival grew from small screenings in bars to feature films at larger venues. Eventually, it moved to Regal Downtown West and later found a permanent home at Central Cinema, the independent theater Mahaffey co-founded in 2018.

“Having our own venue meant we could finally do the festival exactly how we wanted,” Mahaffey said.

Finding new venues in the earlier years wasn’t easy and Mahaffey said they even had to crowdfund to afford Regal. The pandemic brought a new obstacle for the film festival in 2020 when Central Cinema had to close temporarily. Mahaffey refused to let his hard work disappear and instead he and his team took the festival to the Parkway Drive-In in Maryville, Tennessee.

“We didn’t want to cancel, so we figured out how to make it work, ” Mahaffey said.

Fans loved the decision so much, it’s now a permanent part of the festival, hosting two nights a year at the drive-in.

Mahaffey’s dedication to the festival has built a passionate fanbase.

“You’re not going to find a better group of horror lovers than in this specific community. They are the OG horror community in Knoxville, run by a great group of folks,” a user on Reddit wrote.

Unlike many film festivals that run multiple screenings at once, the Knoxville Horror Film Festival operates like one long, shared experience.

“We treat it almost like one big four-day marathon,” he said. “It’s a special communal experience,” Mahaffey said.

Looking ahead, Mahaffey hopes to refine the festival’s format to make it more social and relaxed.

“We’ve experimented a lot with adding more films and bigger venues,” Mahaffey said. “Now, I think we’ll streamline things a bit and leave more time for people to hang out, socialize and experience Knoxville.”

Sixteen years later, the Knoxville Horror Film Festival has become more than a celebration and showing of scary cinema. It’s a community tradition that brings together Knoxville’s horror fans for a week of fright and friendship.