When this publication first reported on Gore Wars earlier this month, the casting call for Screamify's practical-effects competition series came with homework: a 90-second produced audition tape — thirty seconds of introduction, sixty seconds of an original horror scene. That requirement is now gone.
As of July 21, the production accepts a simple reel: examples of an artist's existing practical-effects work — prosthetics, makeup effects, blood rigs, creature builds — totaling roughly three minutes. Nothing new needs to be shot. The change lowers the cost of consideration from a weekend of production to an afternoon of editing, and it arrives with the deadline in sight: casting closes August 20, 2026, now under four weeks away.
The essentials are unchanged from our July coverage. The series, in development at the independent horror streamer Screamify (which reports more than 20,000 subscribers), is built on a strict practical-only premise — no generative AI, no CGI — and its winner takes a $10,000 grand prize on the show. Eligibility holds at US residents, 18 and over; submitted work must be the artist's own, with consent from anyone appearing on camera. It remains, as we framed it then, a casting call for a series in development rather than a contest — the reel is a bid for a place in the cast, not a raffle ticket.
The premise has not softened. As we wrote in that first feature: "A convincing wound gag, a working splatter cannon, a creature that holds up in close-up — none of it can be faked in an hour with a plugin." And the argument for the format still holds: "Practical work ages well because it obeys physics."
One provision merits repeating in an anxious year for working artists: the production pledges that submissions are watched by human producers for casting purposes only, and are never used to train AI systems. The campaign's own imagery follows suit — real, public-domain classic-horror frames rather than generated art, a policy this publication can respect.
Artists who filed the earlier 90-second format need not act; those who were deterred by it now have a simpler door, and 27 days to walk through it. Submissions are open at gorewars.com.
Images: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), London After Midnight (1927) — authentic public-domain stills; no AI imagery.
Disclosure: Gore Wars is produced by Screamify, a sister company of Horror Dispatch's parent. Casting details verified against the official terms at gorewars.com/rules.
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