Bloody Flicks: the UK horror blog behind the Bloody Flicks Awards

Overview

Bloody Flicks is a UK horror blog at bloody-flicks.co.uk, run by Paul Downey — whom the Grimmfest festival site identifies as the person who “runs the excellent horror site Bloody Flicks” (Grimmfest). The site publishes horror news, reviews and reader competitions, champions independent horror and cult cinema, and stages its own annual event, the Bloody Flicks Awards, at the Boiler Works in Stoke-on-Trent (Horror News Network). In July 2025 it covered the North American collector’s-edition Blu-ray/DVD release of The Bunny Game (Bloody Flicks).

Paul Downey, the operator behind the site

Bloody Flicks is a one-operator outlet in the classic genre-blog mould, and its operator has a public footprint of his own. Grimmfest’s interview with Paul Downey — about his book The Shark Is Roaring: The Story of Jaws The Revenge, following his earlier It’s Me, Billy: Black Christmas Revisited (co-written with Dave Hastings) — opens by noting that “Paul runs the excellent horror site Bloody Flicks,” independently confirming who is behind it (Grimmfest). The interview also establishes Downey’s standing in the UK genre scene: a film-history obsessive whose Jaws: The Revenge book features the first interview with star Lorraine Gary in over 30 years, and who was about to judge “my short film festival The Bloody Flicks Awards” in Stoke-on-Trent (Grimmfest). The site’s commercial footprint is real too: in September 2026 it teamed up with Picturehouse Cinemas on a competition giving readers the chance to win merchandise for the queer horror Leviticus, released in UK cinemas on 2 September 2026 (Bloody Flicks).

The Bloody Flicks Awards

The site’s most distinctive asset is its own film festival. The Bloody Flicks Awards is an annual event that ran physically in 2020, went virtual in 2021, and returned to a physical edition screening short films and one feature on 25 February 2023 at the Boiler Works in Stoke-on-Trent, according to Horror News Network (Horror News Network). The 2023 edition offered five audience-voted categories — Best Film, Best Foreign Film, Best Director, Best Actor/Actress and Best Music — with winners announced on the Bloody Flicks website and social channels, and entries taken through FilmFreeway (Horror News Network). The audience vote is the point: five categories decided by attendees rather than a jury marks this as a grassroots fan event, not an industry showcase — which implies its value to the site is community-building rather than prestige. Festival Director Paul Downey describes the site as “a continued champion of the independent horror and cult cinema scene” (Horror News Network).

Covering The Bunny Game’s North American release

On 9 July 2025 Bloody Flicks published “Previously banned The Bunny Game released in North America,” reporting that Danse Macabre was releasing a collector’s edition of Adam Rehmeier’s The Bunny Game on Blu-ray and DVD in summer 2025 (Bloody Flicks). The article frames the film as the “provocative and unflinching debut feature” that launched Rehmeier’s directing career — noting his later Dinner in America and Snack Shack, and his then in-post-production Carolina Caroline and Elegy for an American Dream — and as still banned in the UK (Bloody Flicks). Its distinctive contribution is the Julian Richards angle: the article reports that Richards (The Last Horror Movie) discovered the film at the Downtown Heavy Metal Horror Film Festival in Los Angeles and acquired it for Jinga Films, the world sales agent that represented A Serbian Film, with Jinga’s Danse Macabre label handling the release and its special features (behind-the-scenes featurette, teaser, trailer) (Bloody Flicks).

Bloody Flicks Awards editions

Edition	Format	Venue	Source
2020	Physical	Stoke-on-Trent	Horror News Network
2021	Virtual	Online	Horror News Network
2023 (25 February)	Physical — shorts plus one feature	The Boiler Works, Stoke-on-Trent	Horror News Network

Frequently asked questions

Who runs Bloody Flicks? Paul Downey. The Grimmfest festival site identifies him as the person who “runs the excellent horror site Bloody Flicks.” Beyond the blog, Downey is a film author (It’s Me, Billy: Black Christmas Revisited, co-written with Dave Hastings; The Shark Is Roaring: The Story of Jaws The Revenge) and Festival Director of the Bloody Flicks Awards.

What is the Bloody Flicks Awards? An annual film festival run by the site. It was a physical event in 2020, went virtual in 2021, and returned physically on 25 February 2023 at the Boiler Works in Stoke-on-Trent, screening short films and one feature. The 2023 categories — Best Film, Best Foreign Film, Best Director, Best Actor/Actress, Best Music — were voted on by the audience.

What does Bloody Flicks publish? Horror news, reviews and reader competitions from bloody-flicks.co.uk. Its stated editorial focus is independent horror and cult cinema. It has run reader competitions with Picturehouse Cinemas, including a 2026 giveaway of merchandise for the queer horror Leviticus ahead of its UK cinema release.

How did Bloody Flicks cover The Bunny Game’s 2025 release? On 9 July 2025 it published “Previously banned The Bunny Game released in North America,” covering Danse Macabre’s collector’s-edition Blu-ray/DVD release. The article noted the film’s ongoing UK ban, Rehmeier’s subsequent career, and Julian Richards’ role in discovering the film and acquiring it for Jinga Films.

Who is Paul Downey beyond the blog? A UK genre author and festival organiser. His books include It’s Me, Billy: Black Christmas Revisited (with Dave Hastings) and The Shark Is Roaring: The Story of Jaws The Revenge, the latter featuring the first interview with Jaws: The Revenge star Lorraine Gary in over 30 years, per his Grimmfest interview.

Timeline

• 2020 — the Bloody Flicks Awards runs as a physical event (Horror News Network).
• 2021 — the Bloody Flicks Awards runs as a virtual festival (Horror News Network).
• 2022 — Grimmfest interviews Paul Downey about The Shark Is Roaring, identifying him as Bloody Flicks’ operator and a judge of its awards.
• 2022-02-28 — Horror News Network reports the annual festival’s return for 2023, with entries open on FilmFreeway.
• 2023-02-25 — the Bloody Flicks Awards returns physically at the Boiler Works, Stoke-on-Trent (Horror News Network).
• 2025-07-09 — “Previously banned The Bunny Game released in North America” published (site’s own page).
• 2026-09-01 — Picturehouse Cinemas Leviticus merchandise competition (site’s own page).

What we could not verify

• The blog’s founding year: no about page or founding statement was found in any source read in full.
• The exact date and venue of the 2020 physical edition: only the year and format are asserted from Horror News Network; a 22 February 2020 date at the Boiler Works appears in search snippets of first-party pages but was not read in full.
• The Grimmfest interview’s year (2022): inferred from page metadata, not a byline date in the extracted text.
• Article dates for the two Bloody Flicks pages: inferred from their URL paths.
• Whether the Bloody Flicks Awards has run editions after 2023: no source read in full confirms later editions.

Sources

• Grimmfest — Paul Downey talks to us about his book The Shark is Roaring (tier2; Downey runs Bloody Flicks; his books; awards judging role)
• Horror News Network — Bloody Flicks Awards Returns for 2023 (tier2; festival history, venue, categories, Downey’s role)
• Bloody Flicks — Previously banned The Bunny Game released in North America (first-party; the 2025 Bunny Game article)
• Bloody Flicks — COMPETITION: Win Leviticus merch ahead of UK release (first-party; Picturehouse partnership)