Forbidden Worlds Film Festival Review: Myths and Legends
Summary
Rating: ★★★★★
Running Dates: Thursday 23rd April 2026 - Sunday 26th April 2026
Where to see it: Bristol Mega Screen
Duration: 4 day film festival, 4 screenings per day
Review
We were welcomed back as ‘press’ for the sixth time by the amazing team behind Forbidden Worlds Film Festival to review this year’s main festival with the theme of “Myths and Legends”. I cannot begin to express just how perfect of a theme this was, as I and many people in the City Girl Network community love the fantasy genre, so this was very exciting!
This is the ninth installment of the film festival (two a year since 2022, one standard festival and one spooky festival around Halloween) and with each one, they continue to impress. This year the lobby was filled with the same array of stalls to keep you occupied between screenings- Film memorabilia, books, DVD’s, pins, clothing and festival merchandise are all for sale, there’s delicious coffee and food, and Bristol Brewery are always there with their great selection of beers and ales. Bristol Megascreen is right in the centre of town, near the harbourside with shops and restaurants a plenty, but it’s great to have things at the venue itself as there isn’t always a lot of time between screenings, so it means you don’t have to miss anything and can still get fuelled up and find some fun souvenirs to take home with you.
As always though, it’s the films that we look forward to the most and this year included big hitters like Highlander (1986), Excalibur (1981) and Clash of the Titans (1981), and some lesser known gems such as Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) and Pathfinder (1987). However, our favourite films were:
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001, Dir. Christophe Gans, French) - Inspired by actual events, the film centers around a mysterious beast that is killing people in the historical French area of Gevaudan and the men that are dispatched to investigate it and hunt it down. With an incredible cast including Samuel Le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassell, the film combines mesmerising martial arts with period set pieces and terrifying animatronics from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop to create a very special cult classic. I had been wanting to see this film since around 2006 when I first heard about it and thankfully it was worth the wait. It had some of the most beautiful shots I have ever seen on film, it is lit perfectly with so much depth of field and deep rich colours, and the monster reveal, while a little dated, has been reworked for the modern viewer and was scary. A brilliant, action-packed, sometimes funny, sometimes sexy, mythical beast adventure and by far our favourite film of the festival!
The Bride with White Hair (1993, Dir. Ronny Yu, Cantonese) - Cho (Leslie Cheung), of the swordfighting Wudang Sect, is haunted by the memory of a girl who saved him from wolves when he was a boy. They reunite as adults and he discovers that his fantasy woman, Lian (Brigitte Lin), is the lead killer of an evil cult. The film centers around their relationship and if it can withstand the differences between them and their missions. I’ll be honest with you all, this film is NUTS! Almost every shot is a ‘dutch angle’ (tilted to one side or the other), the plot is so fantastical it becomes laughable in places and the characters are bonkers-town! There is a set of conjoined twins who run the cult and every scene with them is like watching a Punch and Judy puppet show… Despite all of that, and perhaps despite myself, I loved it! There was so much to enjoy, soft romantic moments, a sense of purpose for all the characters throughout the film, gorgeous and large scale sets, and a brilliant soundtrack. We would definitely recommend going outside of your comfort zone for this one!
Star Knight (1985, Dir. Fernando Colomo, Spanish but screened in English as the director intended) - Saving the best for last, the team screened this film as the finale of the festival. A bold choice, but an excellent one. Star Knight combines medieval drama with fantastical sci-fi when the inhabitants of a Spanish town mistake an alien spacecraft for a dragon. That’s right, we have alchemy, knights on horses, castles, fair-maidens and A SPACESHIP! Oh and Harvey Keitel! This unintentionally feels like a Monty Python sketch, every line, every scene is more insane than the last, and with any crazy film like this, there’s also so much production lore which only serves to bolster the madness. I would recommend watching this with a group of friends so you can experience the same amount of maniacal laughter that we all did!
As well as feature-length films, Forbidden Worlds has been celebrating genre filmmakers of the future since 2024 with a short film showcase. This year it happened on Saturday morning and it was such a perfect way to start the day. Some of the directors were actually in the audience and introduced their films and there was such a mix of tones, genres, and concepts, it was very impressive. Our Top 5 short films from the festival were:
Nervous Ellie (2025, Dir. David Yorke, UK) - loved the concept of this and was very funny!
Surprise! (2025, Dir. David Gardner, UK) - very surprising (!) and loved the fact it was a stationary camera with all the other characters behind the scenes so you could only hear their voices.
ICARE 9000 (2025, Dir. Robert Duncan, UK) - brilliantly crafted and made me cry.
Dangerous Delivery (Dir. Etienne Laurendeau, Canada) - I don’t think I will ever understand how they shot this, absolutely incredible camerawork.
The Complete Package (2025, Dir. Wyn Wallace, UK) - right up my street, funny, nostalgic and with a dark twist, so well done!
Additionally, before the screening of The Bride with the White Hair, there was a 45 minute panel discussion called Weapons, Witchery and Women in Fantasy with three fantastic women (Ellie Hendricks, the director of the Archeo-Heritage Film Festival, Mara Gold, author of Ancients Myths and Legends without Men and Helen O’Hara, film journalist and Empire Magazine’s podcast co-host) talking about how women are often sidelined in fantasy films as simplistic or overly sexualised characters. It was an absolutely brilliant discussion and there was time at the end for audience questions as well. I really felt like it broke the festival up a bit and woke us all up…in more ways than one!
Final thoughts
I have said something to this effect before in my reviews, but Forbidden Worlds demands that you put your cinematic biases aside and go in with an open mind, because this is a film festival of the weird, the wonderful and the downright wacky, and you need to give yourself over to the experience. Some of the films I have seen there, on that gigantic screen, have stayed with me far beyond the credits rolling, for better or worse, and I think that’s what film and art is all about. Great films should make you laugh, cry, recoil, rejoice and feel like you have truly just witnessedsomething unique. And to be able to do all of that in front of a giant screen with an audience of like-minded enthusiasts, it really is something special. We can’t wait for the next one!
Standout Moment: Finally seeing Brotherhood of the Wolf and being blown away!
Go if you like: Films, cult cinema, community, culture and questioning everything you have ever known!
Last Impression: A fantastic film festival that will continue to grow and charm its audiences.
Book onto the next Forbidden World Film Festival on 23rd and 24th October over on their website.
Written by Amy Evans
We were kindly gifted these tickets in exchange for a review.