This year's edition of the Gerardmer Fantastic Film Festival will have a decidedly Asian flavour. The horror film gathering will run from Jan 28 to Feb 1 in the frosty Vosges region of France with Paul Verhoeven overseeing the competition jury.

Joining Verhoeven are actresses Cecile De France and Corinne Touzet, actors Jean Benguigui, Claude Brasseur and Anthony Delon, writer-director Philippe De Broca, singer Michel Delpech and Albert Dupontel. The short films jury will be headed up by actor-director-writer Marc Jolivet.

The competition films are : Acacia, the third film from South Korea's Park Ki-Hyung; A Tale Of Two Sisters by South Korea's Kim Jee-Wong ; Takashi Miike's 17th feature The Happiness Of Katakuris from Japan ; Jeepers Creepers 2, the sequel to the US hit directed by Victor Salva ; Australia's Lost Things by Martin Murphy ; Love Object from the US's Robert Parigi ; Session 9 by Next Stop, Wonderland director Brad Anderson from the US ; and Canada's Sur Le Seuil by Eric Teissier.

Sidebars include a short film and an anime competition. Veteran actor Christopher Lee will make the trip to Gerardmer to be feted by the festival and special screenings will include Double Vision from Hong Kong's Kuo-Fu Chen, Gozu from Japan's Takashi Miike and special kids' showings of Horus Prince Du Soleil from Japan's Isao Takahata and Roberto Rodriguez's Spy Kids 3-D.

Among films screened during a retrospective of beast driven horror flicks are the 1933 King Kong , Jacques Tourneur's Cat People, Jean Cocteau's Beauty And The Beast, the original Planet of the Apes and Verhoeven's Starship Troopers.

An Evil Dead night is also planned during which the cult trilogy will be screened.

The literary prize for horror writing this year goes to Lebanese author Elias Jabre for Immortals.

Hideo Nakata took home the top prize at Gerardmer last year for his film Dark Water.