Van Poynton

Director of unsparing horrors and thrillers

About

Multi-award-winning director, etc, of “dark,” “stylish,” and “tense” genre cinema
Surreal psychological horror IN (3 minutes) premiered at the 20th Abertoir Horror Festival, Wales, in Nov 2025
Watch the trailer
Dark psycho-horror Spillage (5 minutes) premiered in Oct 2025 at the tenth edition of the “Cannes of horror,” Nightmares, Columbus, Ohio — where it was nominated for Best Midnight Short and Best Cinematography — before hitting Georgia for the 19th Atlanta Horror Fest
Watch the trailer
“Tense” (Deadline) psycho-chiller To the Marrow (8 minutes, 2023) competed for the prestigious Méliès d’Argent — the leading award for European genre cinema — at several fests between 2023-24, with Hard:Line, Germany, declaring it:
“Ominous… intense, suspenseful and aesthetically virtuoso” 
Watch at Crypt TV
Watch the trailer
Macabre crime thriller Make Room in Hell (82 minutes, 2019; as producer, co-writer, cinematographer, colorist, sound designer, title designer, etc);
Stylishdark… hardboiled… gritty… fascinating… unsettling… ominous… bold and unexpected” — Film Threat
Watch on Prime in UK or US or Tubi (US only)
Bizarre psycho-thriller The Nightmare of My Choice (80 minutes, 2016);
Stylishdark… beautiful… compelling… captivating… startling… genuinely remarkable… ultimately brilliant” — UK Film Review
Watch on Prime in UK or US or Tubi (US only)
Apocalyptic thriller The Late Men (79 minutes, 2013) won a “Special Award for Innovation in the New Cinema” and Best Actor at the 14th Melbourne Underground Film Festival — “Mesmeric… haunting… we invented a new award just for this… most daring film” — and was nominated for Excellence in Title Design at SXSW, Texas
Watch the SXSW-nominated title sequence

Horror Where the Monsters Go (12 minutes, 2009) premiered at Raindance, London, and played genre fests across the UK and US before scooping the Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short from the seminal 3rd Babelgum Online Film Festival, earning it a special screening at Tribeca 2010
“Haunting and spooky and filled with authentic childhood memories” — William C. Martell, author of ‘The Secrets of Action Screenwriting’
Watch on Vimeo

Developing a number of dark, stylish, tense features.
Behaves ridiculously around animals.
Berlinale Talents alum.
Bald.