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Grimmfest are bringing the frights to Manchester for their sixteenth edition this October 3 -6 and, following our reveal of the first wave of features back in June, today’s full line-up reveal is not to be missed.
Returning to Manchester’s Odeon Great Northern, the fest is set for four fear-filled days of features and shorts (which will be announced soon). Festival directors Simeon Halligan and Rachel Richardson-Jones are back at the wheel with a slate of excellent genre offerings including three World Premieres, six International Premieres, one European Premiere, seven UK premieres, one English Premiere and four Northern UK Premieres.
Opening the fest is Bruce Goodinson and Shudder’s Black Cab, which stars Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), Last Night In Soho’s Synnøve Karlsen and The Colour Room’s Luke Norris.
Grimmfest passes are now available over at the fest’s official website, so make sure to grab yours after reading this absolutely stacked lineup via the official Grimmfest press release…
Nightmarish journeys are on the menu this year, as Grimmfest celebrates its love of vehicle-based cinema, with the FEAR ON FOUR WHEELS strand.
Launching the strand, and opening this year’s festival, the World Premiere of Bruce Goodison‘s slippery mix of claustrophobic psycho-thriller and the supernatural, Shudder’s BLACK CAB (seen above). Dark secrets are revealed, when a bickering couple make the mistake of accepting a ride with Nick Frost‘s unnervingly over-friendly taxi driver. It’s man versus machine, as a debt-ridden and desperate delivery driver finds himself in a life-or-death confrontation with a deranged Snow Plow driver, in DELIVERY RUN, Joey Palmroos‘ inventive Winter-based riff on a much-loved genre classic, another Grimmfest World Premiere. A cash-strapped cabbie finds himself out of his depth when he downloads a mysterious App, promising high-paying, but increasingly dangerous driving jobs, in Michael Pierro‘s Fantasia festival winning gritty neo-noir, SELF DRIVER, which has its European Premiere. A sleep-deprived taxi driver, plagued by terrifying nightmarish visions is forced by a maverick psychiatrist to confront repressed memories and long-buried guilt, in writer-director-star Nick Cheung‘s dazzling and disorientating surrealist psychodrama PEG O’ MY HEART, a UK Premiere. And to complete our FEAR ON FOUR WHEELS strand, A young Latina petty thief driving cross country finds herself the target of a devious, psychopathic, redneck sheriff, who views his badge as a licence to prey on vulnerable young women, in Lawrence Jacomelli’s gritty and gruelling desert noir road movie, BLOOD STAR, a Grimmfest UK Premiere.
Meanwhile, the woods are eerie, dark, and deep, in the TERROR IN THE TREES strand.
Oppressive patriarchal puritanism collides with a far older faith in Didier Konings’ ferocious period set feminist Folk Horror fable, WITTE WIEVEN (HERESY). Recalling Bergman at his most unflinching, but with a wild psychedelic edge all its own, the film is a UK premiere. A weekend camping trip goes badly and bloodily wrong, as tensions are exposed, friendships betrayed, and psychopathologies unleashed, in Robyn August‘s satiric slasher, KILLHER, a crowd-pleasing call back to old school 80s slashers, and another international premiere. A young boy is forced to leave the safety of his forest home, and cross a desolate, plague-riddled landscape in search of what remains of civilisation, in Vardan Tozija’s heart breaking, emotionally brutal post-apocalyptic fairy tale, M, a UK Premiere. Guilt and emotional damage collide with local legend and a treacherous forest landscape in Philip W. de Silva‘s FROM DARKNESS, a visually stunning fusion of Scandi-noir, Swedish mythology, and the supernatural, receiving its Northern UK premiere.
The camera, they say, never lies. But it doesn’t always tell the whole truth in Grimmfest’s IN CAMERA Strand.
STRANGE HARVEST, the latest film from Stuart Ortiz (GRAVE ENCOUNTERS) sees “The Call of Cthulhu” recast as a True Crime documentary, chronicling the hunt for a terrifying serial killer with a uniquely bizarre agenda. This brilliantly realised pastiche receives its UK Premiere. A frustrated new father is catfished by a camgirl with a secret far deadlier than he could ever imagine, in R.J. Daniel Hanna‘s outrageous, genre-smashing shocker, SUCCUBUS. With an all-star cast that includes Rosanna Arquette and Ron Perlman, the film has its International Premiere at Grimmfest. Aaron Fradkin (VAL) makes a welcome return with the international premiere of BEEZEL, a terrifying chronicle of a New England house over a fifty-year period, and the influence of an ancient evil upon several generations of the same family; an unreliable narrative, captured on a series of equally unreliable recording formats. Pierre Tsigaridis (TWO WITCHES) makes a welcome return, with TRAUMATIKA; a wild tale of demonic possession, incestuous abuse, and an unstoppable killer. Combining elements of “found footage”, slasher, giallo, and Satanic Panic, it’s a love letter to horror cinema, and a Northern UK premiere.
Other Grimmfest World premieres include…..
Andrew Bell offers an extraordinary contemporary spin on vampirism, in BLEEDING. A stark, grim, utterly unsentimental exploration of the nature of addiction and teenage desperation, it’s harrowing, horrifying, and emotionally brutal.
Other Grimmfest International Premieres include…
A newly-wed couple find their relationship under strain when their honeymoon is hijacked by a manic inventor and his cynical wife in search of funding for their improbable project, in Chris Skotchdopole‘s CRUMB CATCHER; a pitch-black comedy of social discomfort that turns into a violent life or death conflict. A city is faced with the thirty-minute countdown to a nuclear strike, and the instinct for survival overrides every other consideration, in Loïs Dols de Jong‘s suffocatingly tense AMSTERDAM ALERT. A masterclass of white-knuckle cinema verité storytelling.
Having their UK Premiere at Grimmfest…
Can Evrenol (BASKIN) pulls no punches with SAYARA, a brutal exploration of the nature of revenge, which also hammers home some sharply observed points about racism, misogyny and corruption in Turkish society. This is not a film for the faint-hearted. EARLY BIRDS, Michael Steiner‘s stylish and kinetic neo-noir chase movie, about two mismatched and desperate women on the run from a brutal drug gang is both a heart-rending thriller, and a gripping tale of female friendship and self-determination. An egotistical scientist meets his match in Stimson Snead‘s high-concept time-bending head-spinning sci-fi comedy, TIM TRAVERS & THE TIME TRAVELER’S PARADOX. Featuring a brilliant central performance, by Samuel Dunning, and scene-stealing support from such cult film icons as Keith David, Danny Trejo, Felicia Day and Joel McHale. TERRIFIER 2’s Lauren Lavera stars as an ambitious art restorer, enlisted by a sinister baroness to salvage a damaged family portrait, only to discover demonic activities down below in THE WELL. Federico Zampaglione’s (SHADOW) homage to classic Italian horror has its English premiere at Grimmfest.
And having their Northern UK Premieres…
DEAD MAIL, A twisted, darkly funny tale of a hapless synthesizer developer held hostage by his increasingly deranged sponsor, and the efforts of a dead letter investigator to find him in Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s masterful thriller. THE CHILDREN OF THE WICKER MAN, Justin and Dominic Hardy’s poignant documentary which combines fascinating new details about the production of the classic film, with an unflinching and moving study of two grieving sons coming to terms with the legacy of their father.
