Sports and horror are a rare pairing, yet Fantastic Fest is about to give genre fans their second combination of the two in as many years. In 2025, Him took the field, mixing football and the macabre in a story about an up-and-coming quarterback being invited to train with an aging superstar at his isolated compound, where the methods employed are more than a little sinister. Neither critics nor audiences were big fans of the film in the end, though, despite interesting ideas and strong performances from the starring duo of Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans. Now, Bloody Tennis will attempt to take the niche subgenre and serve up a winner in its North American premiere at the country’s most prestigious event for genre filmmaking.
As part of Collider’s Exclusive Preview series, we’re thrilled to share a new look at the brutal thriller that shows exactly where the title comes from. Bloody Tennis unfolds at a prestigious girls’ tennis academy where, like Isaiah’s compound in Him, violence is part of the regimen and only the hungriest, most cutthroat players will survive. At the center of the experience is Sophie (Sandra Guldberg Kampp), who is slowly exposed to the academy’s extreme methods when she’s enrolled over the summer. As she slowly builds bonds with her fellow young players, their circumstances grow from strange, like being constantly served bizarre red, chunky smoothies, to creepy, with leeches applied to help performance. Getting further into the program and getting better only gives the Academy more hold over Sophie, and the push to reach greatness at all costs only grows.
Our exclusive image shows Sophie observing the results of her training in the mirror. A large, bloody gash just below her eye leaves streaks of crimson down the left side of her face, as she looks detached and borderline unfazed by the damage. The academy encourages a singular commitment to winning on another level, where bodily harm and sacrifice are viewed not as problems to correct, but signs of commitment to be rewarded. It’s an illustration of the key behind Bloody Tennis‘ satire about the modern world that glorifies and expects the grind. Buying into the academy’s logic won’t just cost Sophie her own blood, sweat, and tears, though. The cost of her ascension will be paid by the people around her, with whom she’s experienced friendship, rivalry, and desire.
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Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring
Every great horror franchise is one very specific fear wearing a mask. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes certain nobody believes you. One is already inside your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family right now. Eight questions decide which of them was built for you.
😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)
🧸Chucky(Child’s Play)
📞Scream(Ghostface)
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🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)
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01
What actually frightens you, when you are honest about it? Every horror franchise is one fear, dressed up and handed a knife.
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02
It is very late and you are alone. What do you do? Everybody has a ritual for this. Yours says more than you think.
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03
The first sign arrives. How do you react to it? There is always a warning. There is usually nobody listening.
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04
How much of this do you think is your own fault? The best horror always leaves that question slightly open.
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05
What would actually keep you alive in a horror film? Somebody always survives. It is rarely the person you expect.
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06
Who do you want in the room with you? Almost nobody survives a horror film completely alone.
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07
It is over. What do you carry out of it? Horror never really ends at the credits. It just stops filming.
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08
The lights go off tonight. Which thought finds you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.
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The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…
Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.
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A Nightmare on Elm Street · Since 1984
Elm Street
Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.
Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
You are the person who lies awake running through it again. Your own mind is where this
starts and where it does the damage.
These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.
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Child’s Play · Chucky · Since 1988
Chucky
Your nightmare is not really the thing itself. It is the face of
the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.
Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
You know the specific loneliness of being right while everyone around you is being
reasonable at you.
The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
have met those adults.
By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.
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Scream · Ghostface · Since 1996
Scream
Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.
Scream is the only one of these where the monster takes the mask off and turns out to be
somebody who was at the party.
You watch people. You notice the small wrong notes in a conversation, and you have never
entirely been able to switch that off.
The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.
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The Conjuring · The Warren Files · Since 2013
The Conjuring
Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the fact that you are the one who moved them all here.
The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
Your fear is protective rather than personal. What frightens you is failing somebody,
not being hurt yourself.
This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
standing in the hallway.
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Who Will Hit the Court for ‘Bloody Tennis’?
Kampp takes the court in Bloody Tennis after most recently reprising her role as Thalis for one episode in Season 3 of the Apple TV sci-fi series, Foundation. She’s joined by a talented international cast including Zlatko Burić, who’s had a busy year between Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, Wonder Man, and The Bride!, alongside Elina Löwensohn, Tracy Gotoas, Helena Zengel, Lily Taïeb, Juliana Vieira Guerra, Lucie Zhang, and Vincent Romeo. Behind the camera, meanwhile, was writer-director Nikias Chryssos with a much bloodier follow-up to their music drama Rave On, released last year. The sports horror feature earned solid marks from the few critics who saw its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, but Shudder felt confident enough in its blend of blood, stomach-churning violence, and emotional coming-of-age elements to purchase the rights to distribute it starting September 25, even before then.
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First, Bloody Tennis makes its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 20. The festival begins this week on September 17 at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas. Check out our exclusive image above and stay tuned here at Collider for more new looks throughout the rest of the week as we gear up for the event’s 21st edition. More information on each entry can be found on the official Fantastic Fest film guide.
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