Grimmfest, Manchester’s International Festival of Fantastic Film, returns to its regular home at Manchester’s Odeon Great Northern from 8–11 October for four ferociously full-on days of the best in genre cinema.
Following the recent announcement of the feature line-up, the Grimmfest team are delighted to reveal our opening and closing films. This year’s festival will open with a special advanced screening of Hammer Films, definitive, uncensored 4K restoration of the horror classic DRACULA, while the UK premiere of VICTORIAN PSYCHO, starring Maika Monroe, will bring the festival to a suitably bloody close.
DRACULA
Hammer’s 1958 DRACULA (aka HORROR OF DRACULA), directed by Terence Fisher, redefined horror, bringing gothic terror into vivid, shocking colour. Lean, fast-paced and fiercely modern, it stripped away the theatrical dread of earlier adaptations to create something sensual, visceral and genuinely dangerous – while making stars of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
The film has been restored by Hammer Films and Silver Salt Restoration in collaboration with The Warner Archive Collection. Hammer is releasing a definitive uncensored 4K restoration of this horror classic in late October, this is the most complete version ever seen by UK and US audiences.
with a nationwide cinema release from the 16th October, followed by a new UHD and Blu-ray box set due for release on 26 October. Lucky Grimmlins will get an exclusive opportunity to experience the restored film ahead of its official release.
The restoration also brings back long-lost footage believed missing for more than six decades, Reels from the original 1958 Japanese theatrical release previously seen only during the original Japanese theatrical release and never before released in full in the UK or US, that reinstates footage cut from the UK and US versions by censors, for being deemed “too gruesome”.
VICTORIAN PSYCHO
A blood-splattered satire of Victorian high society and Gothic melodrama, adapted by author Virginia Feito from her acclaimed novel, Zachary Wigon’s much-anticipated film mixes literary allusions with trusted horror tropes to outrageous effect.
A hell-born hybrid of Jane Austen, Daphne du Maurier, the Brontës, Sarah Waters and Bret Easton Ellis, VICTORIAN PSYCHO combines the elegance of classic costume drama with the torrid excess of a Gainsborough bodice-ripper and the cinematic self-awareness of Guillermo del Toro’s CRIMSON PEAK. Anchored by a mischievous, full-blooded performance from Maika Monroe, it’s a riotous rampage through Victorian values that rattles the windows, kicks down the doors and is absolutely not to be missed.
Grimmfest is also delighted to announce three themed shorts programmes. This year’s selection includes two World Premieres, two International Premieres, one European Premiere, eleven UK Premieres, two Regional Premieres and three Greater Manchester Premieres, alongside welcome returns from several Grimmfest favourites and exciting new discoveries.
WEIRDER TALES
Shorts that put contemporary twists on classic WEIRD TALES-style scenarios.
Bill Watterson, director of Grimmfest favourite DAVE MADE A MAZE, returns with the UK premiere of MIDNIGHT CITY, writer-actor Yuri Lowenthal’s pitch-perfect 1940s Film Noir pastiche with a supernatural twist.
Three gold prospectors face faith, conscience and carnivores in the northern UK premiere of Kelsey Bollig and VFX maestro Matthew DuVall’s Gothic Western creature feature THE BONES EXIST.
In the slums of Rio, visions of lost Carcosa haunt a reluctant drug trafficker in the ….. premiere of Nícolas Lobato and Thiago Tuchu’s gritty collision of social realism and Cosmic Horror, FAVELA AMARELA.
A medieval hermit encounters a hideously disfigured visitor from somewhere impossibly distant in the international premiere of Kevin Ray and Matthew Fisher’s haunting parable THE ANCHORESS.
Italian screen legend Franco Nero stars in the World premiere of Jacopo Marchini’s ferocious reimagining of Lovecraft’s THE TERRIBLE OLD MAN, while rave culture meets folk horror in the UK premiere of L.S. David and Miguel Solís’s trippy POV nightmare ANAX.
FUTURE TENSION
Contemporary fears projected into the worst of all possible futures, from the nightmarish to the blackly comic.
Fabio Langella’s QUI INSIEME explores love, sacrifice and male entitlement across a multiverse, a UK premiere. THE HIRING PROTOCOL, from François Choquene, turns the search for employment into a physically and psychologically punishing corporate nightmare, a UK premiere.
A depressed woman makes a terrible bargain with her AI therapy device in the world premiere of Paton Ashbrook’s HARVEST, while an astronaut faces the cost of saving a dead planet in Emanu Garnheim’s animated eco-parable ÅTERSÅDD, a UK premiere.
The Northern UK premiere of Ran Jing’s IMPRINT delivers an icy take on Western privilege and entitlement, while the World premiere of JC Farris’s A VIOLENT FLAMMABLE WORLD offers a sour, cyberpunk satire, where staying in credit is literally a matter of life and death.
Finally, a reconditioned military robot struggles with domestic servitude in Kerry Glennon’s gloriously gory splatter-satire RAGGOT, a UK premiere.
LAUGHING IN THE DARK
Because horror and humour make perfect bedfellows, this programme ranges from surreal comedy and social satire to scatological splatter.
Puberty gets messy in the greater Manchester premiere of Fernando Alle’s gross-out PIMPLE, while a sordid flat-share spawns something monstrous in the Greater Manchester premiere of Will Wightman’s live-action cartoon THIS PLACE IS A SH*THOLE.
Natasha Halevi returns with another Super-8 entry in her “Cute Existential Dread” series, MY LEFT HAND IS A PART OF ME, a darkly funny meditation on prejudice and body dysmorphia.
The UK premiere of Lukas Hassel’s UP CLOSE pitches a mordantly funny monologue somewhere between AMERICAN PSYCHO and Alan Bennett’s TALKING HEADS. Yes, seriously.
In the UK premiere of DAY OF THE DAD, James III combines splatter and social comedy as an overstressed father tries to keep his baby daughter asleep while the world goes to hell.
A delivery driver gets tangled up with three suspiciously friendly old ladies in the Northwest UK premiere of Diogo Abrantes and João Rito’s folk-art-meets-EC-comics gorefest KNITTING CLUB.
The team behind PASPOCALYPSE return with POCONGDORIE, a deadpan supernatural comedy about Dutch-Indonesian siblings clearing out their late mother’s house – and finding there’s more to remove than the furniture.
In the UK premiere of Jano Pita’s OPEN MIC, a struggling comedian’s anxieties take physical form, while the UK premiere of Pim Vogels’ FATUM turns an interview with a monstrous plutocrat into surreal nightmare territory.
And finally, a stranded traveller finds unlikely sanctuary in a black metal karaoke bar alongside a penguin in the UK premiere of Wannes Vanspauwen and Pol De Plecker’s droll, deadpan PITHEAD.
With a huge range of styles, themes and twisted sensibilities, this year’s shorts selection proves once again that when it comes to Grimmfest, good things really do come in small packages.
Weekend passes, day passes and individual tickets are available now on the Grimmfest website.
Bloody Flicks 