Grimmfest, Manchester’s International Festival of Fantastic Film, is back at ODEON Great Northern with four fear-filled days of incredible genre cinema featuring three world premieres, six international premieres, seven UK premieres and much, much more, as well as a headline appearance from actor Nick Frost.
From 3rd-6th October, horror-lovers and movie fans can catch some of the best new screenings long before they go on general release, as well as other films you might never see in another cinema.
This year, the festival celebrates the rich heritage of vehicular cinema with Fear on Four Wheels, a white-knuckle ride into the shadows led by the world premiere of Shudder’s Black Cab, a gripping psycho-thriller with haunting supernatural elements starring Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End) and shot in and around Manchester. Alongside the Thursday showing, Frost and fellow star Synnove Karlsen will appear live in-person with director Bruce Goodison to present the film and answer audience questions.
Elsewhere, a debt-ridden and desperate delivery driver faces off against an unhinged snow plow driver in Joey Palmroos’ wintry chiller, Delivery Run, while a cabbie finds himself in an unfamiliar world of sinister games when he downloads a mysterious app promising lucrative but increasingly deadly jobs in Michael Pierro’s neo-noir Self Driver.
Throughout the weekend, Grimmfest guests can venture into the woods with a schedule of hellish hikes into nature as part of the Terror in the Trees series. Oppressive patriarchal puritanism collides with a far older faith in Didier Konings’ ferocious, Bergman-infused feminist folk horror fable, Witte Wieven. A weekend camping trip goes badly and bloodily wrong, as tensions are exposed, friendships betrayed, and psychopathologies unleashed in Robyn August’s satirical 80s-inspired slasher, Killher, while the gritty and heart-breaking M follows a young boy who is forced to abandon his forest home and cross a desolate, plague-ridden landscape in search of remaining civilisation.
Grimmfest’s third strand, In Camera, showcases a selection of deeply unsettling movies exploring the nature – and danger – of filming itself. Strange Harvest, the latest film from Stuart Ortiz (Grave Encounters), reimagines Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu as a true crime documentary, while the international premiere of subversive thriller Succubus sees a frustrated father catfished by a camgirl with a deadly secret, starring Rosanna Arquette and Ron Perlman.
Check out the full screening programme for Fear on Four Wheels, Terror in the Trees and In Camera HERE.
Other Grimmfest premieres include offbeat black marital comedy Crumb Catcher; suffocatingly tense nuclear countdown thriller Amsterdam Alert; bitingly insightful revenge flick Sayara and many others.
Throughout the festival, attendees have the unique chance to get up close and personal with the actors and the filmmakers themselves, with an unmissable schedule of personal appearances from stars of the screen and the directors. No movie convention price hikes, no three-figure photo fees, no ‘us’ and ‘them’ – just filmmakers and fans united in a love of cinema.
Guest appearances at Grimmfest include Nick Frost (Black Cab), Justin Hardy and Chris Nunn (Children of the Wicker Man), prolific horror director Fredrico Zampaglione, Joey Palmroos (Delivery Run), Loïs Dols de Jong and producer Suzan de Swaan (Amsterdam Alert), Vardan Tozija (M) and many others. Find out more HERE.
Check out the full Grimmfest programme and book your pass for a memorable weekend of movie magic HERE.