Now announcing the 37th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (IFFF)! It will be held on Saturday, February 22, 2020, hosted by the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The theme of this year’s festival is “Crustacean Fear Films.” Crustaceans are a megadiverse group of arthropods that include crabs, lobsters, shrimp, crayfish, pill bugs, and many more, encompassing over 42,000 species! While these arthropods are not insects, they are close relatives of insects which deserve our attention. Join us in watching three crustacean-related fear films. The night will be kicked off with a short anthology of crustacean-related fear films. Following that, we will show the feature-length film Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957; Not Rated). In this movie, scientists become trapped on a shrinking island with intelligent, murderous giant crabs! The second feature film will be The Bay (2012; Rated R); chaos breaks out in a small Maryland town after an ecological disaster (based on the tongue-eating crustacean fish louse) occurs. This one uses “found footage” to make a truly terrifying flick!
Doors open at 6 pm in Foellinger Auditorium on the UIUC campus, with film introductions starting at 7:15 pm. Admission is free. We will feature a live insect/crustacean petting zoo, a local crayfish exhibition, exotic arthropod displays from around the world, face painting, artrhopod origami, and a display of entries from local schools for the annual IFFF art contest, with prizes to be announced at 7:00 pm. Child and adult-size T-shirts featuring this year’s logo (see the profile picture) will also be available for purchase.
We look forward to seeing you on February 22!
