By Grimmfest, Manchester’s International Festival of Fantastic Film, will be returning to its regular venue, Manchester’s Odeon Great Northern, on the 3 – 6 October for four ferociously full-on days of the best in genre cinema.
Following on from the recent announcement of the features line-up, the Grimmfest Team are delighted to reveal the rest of this year’s festival programme.
As part of this year’s Preview Night on October 3rd, Grimmfest are thrilled to announce an exclusive European Premiere screening of three episodes of TALES FROM THE VOID. Inspired by the most viral and haunting stories from the r/NoSleep community, a Reddit forum, where independent authors share short form horror stories, the series mixes pointed contemporary social commentary with classic genre tropes and knowing homages to much loved cult film and TV favourites, and features some of the hottest talents in the field:
The arrival of a mysterious floating black square on a rundown housing estate stokes buried resentments and tensions to boiling point in INTO THE UNKNOWN, directed by Joe Lynch (SUITABLE FLESH).
A teenage prank leads to an unforeseen threat that William Castle would be proud of, in FIXED FREQUENCY, directed by Francesco Loschiavo.
A young woman confronts terrifying repressed memories, following the death of her drug addict mother, in PLASTIC SMILE, directed by John Adams and Toby Poser (HELLBENDER).
Grimmfest’s Shorts Programmes this year features four World Premieres, one International Premiere, three European Premieres, six UK Premieres, one English Premiere, four Regional Premieres, one North West Premiere, and two Greater Manchester Premieres:
METAMORPHOSES offers tales of transformation and deformation, evolution and devolution, mutation and mutability, anxiety and alienation given physical form, and all of the horrors and pleasures of the all-too-fragile flesh…
A telephone call brings unexpected terrors, in James Longman’s quietly unsettling SUFFOCATE (Greater Manchester Premiere).
A young father starts to feel increasingly displaced by his newborn baby, in Aaron Murtagh‘s MAN BABY (North West Premiere).
Kafka plays out on a Parisian housing estate, in COLEOPTERE, Martin Gouzou‘s social (sur)realist spin on METAMORPHOSIS (English Premiere).
A gender-flipped Dorian Gray for the age of social media, in Giulio Manicardi’s unexpectedly poignant SELFIE (UK Premiere).
A neglected woman turns to her favourite house plant for the connection she desires, in Rebecca Thomson‘s macabre and mordantly funny A GREEN AFFAIR (European Premiere).
Two sisters forced to care for their catatonic grandma start to realise that she’s not quite herself any more… Gigi Zumbado (THE PRICE WE PAY), and her sister Carmela star in CARNIVORA, Felipe Vargas‘ queasy study of familial obligation and loss of self (European Premiere).
An actress’s opening night nerves take on terrifying physical form in Jano Pita’s nightmarish study of social anxiety and self-harm, APOTEMNOFILIA (UK Premiere).
And a sensation-seeking man’s midlife crisis leads to fatal temptation in Simret Cheema-Innis‘s polymorphously perverse cyberpunk body horror, FROM ME TO YOU (UK Premiere).
Sometimes, it all just gets too much: family, peer groups, work, unemployment, relationships, sexual performance, imminent parenthood, bereavement, environment, your own late night paranoia. So much pressure… in the TENSIONS programme:
A young woman is awoken by something going bump in the night, in Mikel Iriarte and Jack Downs‘ DEAD OF NIGHT (Regional Premiere).
A bucket holds unexpected mysteries in Axel Zeltser‘s mischievous EMBRACE (Regional Premiere).
A young woman battles for her life, and the future of her relationship against a relentless masked killer, in David Yorke‘s blackly comic SAFE (Regional Premiere).
A young cleaning lady working in a deserted office complex experiences an unexpected threat while working in Jasper ten Hoor and Ivan Hidayat‘s PASPOCALYPSE (World Premiere).
A flustered young man running late for a job interview finds himself faced with an unexpected obstacle in Daniel Noblom‘s claustrophobic PARASOMNIA (World Premiere).
An underpaid office worker discovers that sometimes a moment’s break is hard earned, in Sebastian Ganschow’s visually stunning THE INFINITE BREAK ROOM (World Premiere).
An ambient sleeping aid app holds unexpected dangers in Ethan Evans‘ nightmarish OUTSIDE NOISE (Greater Manchester Premiere).
There’s a uniquely… colourful antidote to toxic masculinity in Yfke van Berckelaer‘s uproarious IZZY (UK Premiere).
Two Grimmfest alumni make a welcome return, as Jeremiah Kipp (SLAPFACE) offers an uncomfortable illustration of that old maxim, “be careful what you wish for”, in the enigmatic and unsettling DARK ROADS (European Premiere), while Nicholas Payne Santos (IT CUTS DEEP) explores the nature of grief and the unwillingness to let go of our loved ones, in the eerie and mournful STRANGE CREATURES (UK Premiere).
Simón Bucher, Claudia Saldivia and Amanda Rivera present a viscerally uncomfortable study of self-destructive greed in THE FEAST (Regional Premiere).
A young woman’s conviction that her husband has been replaced by an alien doppelganger leads to savage violence, in Shane Day‘s troubling take on the classic Bodysnatchers trope, THE NEIGHBOURHOOD AT THE END OF THE WORLD (International Premiere).
And a father-to-be’s fears prove all-too-terrifyingly justified, in Robert Franz‘s gleefully gory study of misogynous male paranoia, AMBROSIA (World Premiere).
There are also a couple of short films this year screening alongside feature films. Sam Fox (FUK’N NUTS) makes a welcome return to Grimmfest with THE BLUE DIAMOND, a high-camp retro-80s take on toxic mother-daughter relationships, self-help therapy groups, and apres-ski, starring a deadpan Desiree Staples and the incomparable Barbara Crampton. The film will screen with DEAD MAIL and is a UK Premiere.
And screening with Robyn August’s KILLHER will be the first of August’s NIGHT WALKS, EDITH AND THE EMPTY (UK Premiere, a droll and deftly observed homage to such much-loved 60s supernatural shows as THE TWILIGHT ZONE, in which an enthusiastic cook meets her match at last in an insatiable entity.
Full and day passes and individual tickets are available at https://www.grimmfest.com/festival/
