Eel Girl is among the independent films that will be shown as part of the Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival.

Chameleon Pictures / Paul Campion

You can get a head start on Halloween over the next four days as the ninth annual Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival unspools its collection of ghouls and ghosts on movie screens from Providence to Narragansett. And the best thing is, you’ll still have time to make your trick-or-treat costume, decorate the house with spider webs and flickering lights, and fill the bowls with miniature candies.

Between the Horror Film Festival’s parade of scary movies, its walking tour that will take participants back to the 1920s world of Providence horror writer H.P. Lovecraft and a reading by the author of a new suspense novel, you will be well prepared for anything Halloween itself can dish out.

Be forewarned, however. These are not classic horror films. Adam Short, producing director of the Rhode Island International Film Festival, which has presented the event for the past eight years, said the collection of feature films and shorts being shown were submitted by independent filmmakers. These are films that have not played many places theatrically and are mostly unknown quantities. Then again, it would be hard to resist films with the titles Eel Girl, Trailer Park of Terror or Christian Vampires from Suburbia.

A handful of the films were screened previously during the more broad-based RIIFF festivities in August. That includes tonight’s very good documentary Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story, about the Hollywood producer of low-budget horror films in the ’50s and ’60s, movies that became moneymakers as much for Castle’s showmanship as for their ability to scare the daylights out of viewers. His audience-grabbing gimmicks included vibrators under seats that made people jump at scary moments in The Tingler. For Macabre, a film where audience members were offered $1,000 insurance policies should they die of fright, Castle had nurses stationed in theater lobbies if anyone needed to be carried out. Then there was the glow-in-the-dark plastic skeleton that sailed over audiences on a wire at scary points in The House on Haunted Hill. Spine Tingler! will be shown starting at 7:30 tonight at the Columbus Theatre, along with three spooky short films.

The festival actually starts at 4 p.m. today at the Providence Public Library’s theater with a collection of five short films. Among them are Death in Charge, in which the Grim Reaper is mistaken for a baby sitter, and A Hood in the Woods, a retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story with a twist.

Shades of William Castle showmanship: stage will meet screen at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Columbus with a performance of Malice Aforethought. This collection of vignettes from horror films culled by RIIFF executive director George Marshall — from such silent classics as 1922’s eerie vampire movie Nosferatu to films that were shown in previous Horror Film Festivals — will be shown via rear projection on the Columbus screen. Meanwhile, at stage front, musical selections from Tales of Hoffmann, Hansel and Gretel and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas will be performed by local singers brought together by Kara Lund, the program’s creative director. Soprano Lund, who has performed nationally and with Opera Providence and the Rhode Island Philharmonic, will sing, along with Lorna Jane Norris, Ethan Bremner and Vaughn Bryner. Matthew Larson, music director of University of Connecticut Opera and staff pianist for Boston University, will accompany on piano. Malice Aforethought will be repeated at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Columbus.

Other screenings will take place at sites ranging from the Bell Street Chapel to the Cable Car Cinema to the Narragansett Theater, which has Trailer Park of Terror at 8 p.m. tomorrow and Nightlife, a documentary about real-life vampires and vampire hunters, at 8 p.m. Saturday (A complete schedule of Horror Festival events is at RIFilmFest.org.)

It’s not only movies that are bound to scare. Author K. Patrick Malone will discuss his latest book, Inside a Haunted Mind, at noon Saturdayat the Providence Public Library. Malone’s debut suspense novel revolves around a relentless evil force that’s closing in on a small town police chief and the World Trade Center survivor he rescued from drowning. This event is free and open to the public.

Also Saturday you can step off at 1 p.m. from the Van Wickle Gates at Brown University (College Street at Prospect Street) for a walking tour of the haunts of Providence fantasy-horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Conducted by C. Morgan Grefe of the Rhode Island Historical Society, the tour will see sites mentioned in Lovecraft’s books, including Prospect Terrace, the First Baptist Church and Benefit Street. Walkers will also see the site of Lovecraft’s former home as well as locales mentioned in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Haunter of the Dark, The Shunned House and The Call of Cthulu.

Following the 90-minute tour, participants will have a special screening at the Columbus of films inspired by Lovecraft’s stories, including Pickman’s Model and The Call of Cthulu. The latter film has shots of Providence that have been digitally altered to capture the look of the city in the 1920s, when Lovecraft was writing.

General admission tickets for screenings in the Horror Film Festival are $10; $8 for students and seniors. Tickets to the Malice Aforethought performance are $25; senior and student discounts are $18. Tickets for the Lovecraft Walking Tour are $15. To reserve tickets, call (401) 861-4445 or visit RIFilmFest.org. Tickets for the movies will also be available at the door.

mjanuson@projo.com