AI Horror Film Contests 2026: $12,000 Curious Refuge Prize and 4 More Horror Awards

FESTIAV in Valencia has a €250 Best Horror AI prize and closes October 4. The AI London Film Festival hands out a Best AI Horror Film award and takes final entries until October 7. WAIMF in Marbella has a Best Thriller-Horror award with a late deadline of September 30. The Hollywood AI Short Film Awards pay $250 for Best Horror, with a regular deadline of October 31 and a final deadline of January 11, 2027. We checked every prize, deadline and rule below against the official pages on September 27, 2026.

The Five Contests at a Glance

In deadline order, as of September 27, 2026:

WAIMF, the World AI Movie Festival in Marbella, Spain. Late deadline September 30. Best Thriller-Horror Film is one of ten awards, and the Grand Prix pays $500 plus a crystal trophy, per its FilmFreeway listing. Films must run at least four minutes.

FESTIAV, the Valencia International AI Film Festival. Deadline October 4 via Festhome. Best Horror/Terror AI Short pays €250, per festiav.com, and the top Best Fiction AI prize pays €1,000. The festival runs October 26 to 30.

AI London Film Festival. Final deadline October 7, notification October 16, screenings at the Close-Up Cinema in central London on November 14 and 15, according to its FilmFreeway page. Best AI Horror Film sits alongside Best AI Film, seven other genre awards and Audience Awards.

Curious Refuge AI Horror Film Competition, run with Epidemic Sound. Deadline October 9. First place $7,000, second $3,000, third $2,000, and an Audience Favorite award decided by community vote.

Hollywood AI Short Film Awards (HASFA). Regular deadline October 31, late December 15, final January 11, 2027. Best Horror is one of seven $250 genre awards, Best Picture pays $750, and the ceremony is February 13, 2027 at the London West Hollywood Screening Room.

If you make one horror film this autumn, those five cover a cash contest, two European screenings, a London theatre and a Hollywood awards night.

Curious Refuge: The $12,000 One

The Curious Refuge competition is the only contest in our directory built entirely around AI horror, and it pays more than the other four put together. This is its fourth year. The 2024 page lists $4,750 in prizes: $3,000, $1,000, $500 and a $250 Audience Favorite. For 2026 the total is $12,000 and first place alone is $7,000.

The rules got tighter as the money grew. In 2024 films could run five minutes and entries closed October 21. In 2026 the limit is three minutes and the deadline is October 9. According to the official 2026 rules, AI must be used in every shot and "the majority of the pixels in the frame must be AI-generated." You can enter up to two original films. The idea must be original, with no third-party intellectual property and no likenesses of living famous people. Every film must end with the Curious Refuge end card, shown for at least three seconds. Submissions go through EasyPromos; the rules say emailed entries will not be accepted.

The detail that trips people up is sound. All music and sound effects must come from Epidemic Sound, and the rules say entries using any other music or sound effects "will not be eligible for judging." In horror, sound design carries half the scare, so plan the audio inside Epidemic Sound from the start. Do not score the film in Suno and try to swap tracks the night before. The rules cover music and effects but say nothing about voice, so check with Curious Refuge before building dialogue in ElevenLabs.

Who Judges the Curious Refuge Contest

Five judges pick first, second and third place: Shelby Ward, co-founder of Curious Refuge; Verena Puhm, an AI filmmaker and studio founder; Spooky Dan, an AI filmmaker and self-described horror fanatic; Chris White, executive producer of Backrooms; and Dave Clark, chief creative officer at Promise Studios.

Two facts from the official pages are worth knowing. First, the scoring is ranked, not averaged. Each judge gives 5 points to their first choice, 3 to their second and 1 to their third, and the judging criteria are creativity, adherence to the AI rules, story, attention to detail and overall impact. A film that sits near the top of every judge's list can beat one that one judge adores and the others ignore. Second, Verena Puhm placed second in the 2024 edition, according to the 2024 results page, and now sits on the panel. The contest rewards people who come back.

The Audience Favorite is separate. Community voting opens October 21 at 11 AM Pacific and closes October 28 at 11 AM Pacific, and all winners are announced on October 29, two days before Halloween. The Audience Favorite prize is a Curious Refuge course enrollment and a t-shirt, not cash.

FESTIAV, AI London and WAIMF: Horror Awards in Europe

The three European festivals treat horror as one category inside a general AI film festival. Your film competes for the horror award and, at the same time, for everything else it qualifies for.

FESTIAV is the cheapest route to a cash horror prize. The €250 horror award is small, but a horror short that tells a complete story can also compete for Best Fiction AI at €1,000. The festival's rules as listed in our directory ask for horizontal 16:9 video at a minimum of 1920x1080 and 24 fps, with a maximum of 15 minutes. FESTIAV also runs a separate 24-hour challenge, FESTIAV LAB, for teams of two or three, with a €3,000 prize. Everyone gets the same script, music and images to start from.

AI London's value is the screen. Selected films play the Close-Up Cinema, and screenings are followed by filmmaker conversations. The festival takes films from any country, requires English subtitles for non-English films, and splits entries by runtime, from shorts under 10 minutes up to features over 30. Horror is one of eight genre awards.

WAIMF is the one to watch for runtime. Its rules set a minimum of four minutes including credits, which rules out a three-minute Curious Refuge cut as submitted. Its Best Thriller-Horror award and the $500 Grand Prix are decided at the Red Dog Cinema in Puerto Banús on October 8.

HASFA: The Horror Award With the Longest Runway

The Hollywood AI Short Film Awards have the most relaxed timeline of the five. The regular deadline falls on Halloween, October 31, and the final deadline is January 11, 2027, with notification on January 22. That leaves room to polish a film after the October rush, or to enter the one you already sent to Curious Refuge.

HASFA pays $2,750 in total. Best Horror is one of seven $250 genre awards, with Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Sci-Fi, Documentary and Animation. Best Picture pays $750 and the Emerging Creator Award another $250. Films must be completed on or after January 1, 2024 and run no more than 22 minutes including credits, and the contest is open worldwide. The ceremony runs on Super Bowl weekend, February 13, 2027, at the London West Hollywood Screening Room in Los Angeles.

One Film, Five Entries: How to Plan It

The contests have different rules, so the order you make things in matters. Here is a plan that works from today, September 27.

Make the three-minute cut first. It is the hardest constraint and it carries the most money. Build it under the Curious Refuge rules: AI in every shot, Epidemic Sound for all music and effects, original story, end card attached. Submit by October 9.

Then check the European entries against their own specs. The same three-minute film fits FESTIAV's 15-minute cap and AI London's under-10-minute category, but confirm each festival's current fee and technical requirements on Festhome and FilmFreeway before paying. FESTIAV closes October 4 and AI London October 7, so these two actually come before Curious Refuge on the calendar. If you want them, you need a finished cut in the first week of October.

WAIMF needs a four-minute film. If you only have three minutes, skip it or build a longer version. Its late deadline is September 30.

Keep HASFA for later. After Curious Refuge announces its winners on October 29, you have until October 31 for HASFA's regular deadline and until January 11 for its final one.

What Tends to Work in AI Horror

Three-minute AI horror rewards restraint. Current video models, including Runway, Kling, Veo, Sora and Hailuo, are good at mood, texture and slow reveals, and less reliable with fast action and complex physical interaction between characters. Horror plays to those strengths: long held shots, darkness, a single location and something slightly wrong in frame.

Character consistency matters more in horror than in most genres, because the audience needs to recognise the person in danger across cuts. Lock your lead's look with a reference image before you generate a single clip. Our guide to consistent characters in AI film covers how.

Keep the story small. The Curious Refuge judges score story and overall impact alongside craft, and three minutes holds one idea and one turn. A premise you can say in one sentence, one setting, and an ending that lands will beat a lore-heavy trailer for a film that does not exist.

Finally, respect the AI-use rules literally. Curious Refuge requires AI in every shot and that most pixels in the frame be AI-generated. A mostly live-action short with AI touch-ups would qualify at HASFA, AI London and WAIMF, which accept hybrid work, but not at Curious Refuge.

Deadlines Move: Check Before You Pay

Every date on this page comes from an official festival page or FilmFreeway listing checked on September 27, 2026, and several of these contests have changed dates between editions. Curious Refuge moved its deadline from October 21 in 2024 to October 16 in 2025 and to October 9 this year. Always confirm on the official page before you submit, especially where a fee is involved.

We track every AI film contest with horror, thriller and genre awards in the live directory, and we add new ones as they open. Subscribe below and we will email you when a new AI horror contest opens or a deadline gets close.