STOURBRIDGE'S very own master of the macabre is organising a festival of short shorts to put the region on the horror map.

Wollaston based actor Alan Birch, star of the Inspector Drake movies, has been terrifying supernatural fans with scary storytelling nights hosted by his Weeping Bank Productions company, which he runs with horror writer AG Smith, for the last couple of years.

Now he's hoping to encourage fellow horror fans to get creative and shoot a five-minute scary movie for a brand new film festival.

Alan said: "I'm really excited about this. We’re calling it The Black Country Horror Shorts Film Festival but this competition is open to anyone. I'm inviting anybody who fancies themselves as a filmmaker to submit their entry to us and put the Black Country on the horror film map (if there is such a thing)."

He added: "We've got a couple of big names from the world of horror writing as judges including Adam Nevill from Birmingham, whose book The Ritual has been turned in to a chart-topping Netflix movie, and Worcester-based Hendrik Harms, whose film company is currently adapting the Stephen King book 'All that you love will be carried away' into a movie."

The winner will pick up a top prize of £200 plus a crate of Batham’s Bitter. There will also be prizes for the three runners up.

A selection of highly commended shorts will be screened at the film festival at Kinver High School (home of Kinver Film Society) on Saturday January 25 along with the entries of the three runners up and the overall winner.

Entrants can send a link to their film via weepingbankproductions.co.uk. 

Films must be no longer than five minutes and all entries need to be submitted by December 14.

The entry fee is £10 and all the details are available on the website.