GrimmFest 2013 – The Full Line Up

As the South’s best horror festival ends the North’s gets set to start as GrimmFest announces its full line up for the 5 day festival taking place from the 2nd to the 6th of October.

Promising to be the biggest, best GrimmFest yet 2013’s line up is packed full of amazing horror movies from across the globe guaranteed to keep you entertained and enthralled.

With movies and events over three venues and plenty of give-away’s, guests, special events and more GrimmFest is not to be missed so get your tickets and passes Here before it sells out!

Wednesday 2nd October – Preview Night – The Plaza Super Cinema, Stockport*

5.00pm – 6.37pm HANSEL AND GRETEL GET BAKED
USA; Director: Duane Journey; Starring: Molly C. Quinn; Lara Flynn Boyle; Yancy Butler
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: This year marks the Bicentennial of the publication of that infamous volume of dark and distinctly unDisneyish fairy tales compiled by our illustrious namesakes, the Brothers Grimm. How could we resist offering a little off-colour tribute? This mischievous and mean-spirited black comedy of horrors sees the ghoulish tale of kids lost in the forest and gingerbread houses with sinister secrets updated to suburban America, where a cannibal pot dealer lures sibling stoners to their deaths with some super strong skunk weed. Featuring an unsettlingly witchy lead turn from TWIN PEAKS’ Lara Flynn Boyle, TWILIGHT hunk Michael Welch as Hansel, and a supporting turn from the Witchblade herself, Yancy Butler, it serves as a rollicking reminder that fairy tales aren’t just for kids.

7.00pm – 9pm THE WICKER MAN
UK; Director: Robin Hardy; Starring: Christopher Lee; Edward Woodward; Diane Cilento; Britt Ekland; Ingrid Pitt
Year: 1973
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Director Robin Hardy has long maintained that the “Short Version” of The Wicker Man, the only one that has ever been shown in UK cinemas, does not make narrative sense. To celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary Studiocanal have been conducting an extensive worldwide search for lost scenes. Eventually a 35mm release print was found at Harvard Film Archives and sent to London, where Robin Hardy confirmed it as the cut he had put together in 1979 for the US release, assembled from a 35mm print of his original, preferred, previously unreleased edit. Grimmfest is delighted to be presenting this classic of British cinema as the director himself intended it to be seen.

9.00pm – 9.23pm RADIO SILENCE (SHORT)

9.30pm – 11.00pm SURPRISE FILM TBA

 

Thursday 3rd October – Lass O’Gowrie and The Dancehouse, Manchester.

GRIMMFEST FRINGE @ Lass O’Gowrie
11.00am – 12.20pm TO JENNIFER
USA; Director: James Cullen Bressack; Starring: Chuck Pappas, Jessica Cameron, Jody Barton, James Cullen Bressack
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: James Cullen Bressack’s debut feature, the visceral and uncompromising HATE CRIME proved a controversial talking point at last year’s festival; its raw, grimy, and up-close depiction of racial and sexual violence making even the most strong-stomached of Grimmlins a little uncomfortable. TO JENNIFER is something of a change of pace. Sticking with the found-footage format, Bressack this time opts for a darkly funny psychological thriller; a buddy road trip into the heart of a very particular kind of darkness. Shot entirely on an iPhone, it is another triumph of boundary-pushing low-budget filmmaking, and we are delighted to be presenting the European(?) premiere.

12.30-1pm SHORT FILM TBA

1.00pm – 2.25pm HOME SWEET HOME
Canada / France; Director: David Morlet; Starring: Megan Heffern; Adam MacDonald; Shane Benson
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Here at Grimmfest, we love a good Home Invasion movie, and this is a beauty. Marking the English language debut of David Morlet, director of the underrated MUTANTS, this is an elegant, coldly precise film, which gets maximum mileage from its single location; utilising framing, camera movement, composition and space to convey tension, in a manner that John Carpenter and his HALLOWEEN DOP Dean Cundey would be proud of. Taking time with his set-ups, just as the home invader takes his time in his actions, Morley creates a truly memorable, genuinely chilling portrait of the clinical psychopath in action.

2.35pm – 3.05pm GIRL AT THE DOOR + ATTACK OF THE BRAINSUCKER (SHORTS)

3.05pm-3.25pm ANGST, PISS AND SHIT (SHORT)

3.40-5.00pm HOUSE WITH 100 EYES
USA; Directors: Jay Lee; Jim Roof; Starring: Jim Roof; Shannon Malone; Larissa Lynch
Year: 2011
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Just when you thought the found footage film couldn’t offer anything new, this provocative and poker-faced pitch-black comedy of cruelty comes a-knocking. Riffing off Paul Bartel’s seminal EATING RAOUL, and the prurient fratboy leering of gonzo porn, it offers a grimly satiric portrait of suburban values gone astray and the delusional megalomania of the amateur filmmaker, alongside a truly gripping, and deeply disturbing study of entrapment, perversion and torture.

The Dancehouse

7.00pm – 8.30pm THE BORDERLANDS
UK; Director: Elliot Goldner; Starring: Aidan McArdle; Patrick Godfrey; Gordon Kennedy; Luke Neal; Robin Hill.
Year: 2013
GRIMMS EYE VIEW: The Borderlands is a neat take on the found footage subgenre that is actually refreshing to watch as its not shaky cam as is so often the case but actually very carefully shot, utilising headcams and static cameras to conjure a real feeling of uneasiness. With Echoes of THE WICKERMAN this investigation into rural British and religious past proves to be a very suspenseful journey.

8.30pm – 8.40pm CRAZY FOR YOU (SHORT)

8.40pm – 9.00pm THE BORDERLANDS + CRAZY FOR YOU Q&A

9.25pm – 11.09pm ON AIR
Germany; Directors: Marco J. Riedl; Carsten Vauth; Starring: Markus Knüffken; Charles Rettinghaus; Ronald Nitschke; Jasmin Lord
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Radio DJs have always made good protagonists,, from Gary Cole in cult TV series MIDNIGHT CALLER to Eric Bogosian in TALK RADIO, to Stephen McHattie in PONTYPOOL. Doc Rock is the latest in a long line of lonely , cynical men, mouthing off into the dark, never certain who or what they might provoke with their incendiary words. Combining a nail-biting race against time and an elegant and perceptive study of media complicity in news making, this tense and relentless thriller recalls this tense and relentless thriller receives its European Premiere at this year’s festival

Lass O’Gowrie
11.20pm onwards AFTER-PARTY WITH “MOVIEOKE”

 

Friday 4th October – Lass O’Gowrie and The Dancehouse, Manchester.

GRIMMFEST FRINGE @ Lass O’Gowrie
11.00am – 12.28pm MY AMITYVILLE HORROR
USA: Director: Eric Walter; Starring: Daniel Lutz; Laura DiDio; Neme Alperstein
Year: 2012
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: We all know the fictional version, but now here’s a chance to try and sift through the facts. Documentary filmmaker Eric Walter combines years of independent research into the Amityville case with the perspectives of past investigative reporters and eyewitness testimonies, to offer the most personal exploration of the subject to date, as Daniel Lutz struggles to make sense of, and come to terms with his damaged past.

1.00pm – 2.30pm SMILEY
USA: Director: Michael J. Gallagher; Starring: Caitlin Gerard, Melanie Papalia, Shane Dawson, Roger Bart, Keith David
Year: 2012
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Much-maligned upon initial release. Michael J. Gallagher’s Youtube spawned shocker is well worth another look. Splicing together elements of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and CANDYMAN with quasi-philosophical musings on the nature of evil and the evolution of online consciousness, this is at heart an old-school slasher, with its hateful teens, disfigured killer, false shocks, improbable twist ending(s) and moral revulsion for the youth of today. With all of the retro-slashers around these days, we’re surprised it didn’t prove more popular.

2.30pm – 2.41pm THE PLAN (SHORT)

3.00pm – 4.30pm ANTISOCIAL
Canada; Director: Cody Calahan; Starring:Michelle Mylett; Cody Ray Thompson; Adam Christie;
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Combining the communication media paranoia of Bruce MacDonald’s PONTYPOOL with the body horror of David Cronenberg’s VIDEODROME, this tense, claustrophobic Canadian shocker offers a stern warning against spending too much time online . It’s not just the prevarication and wasting of time. It’s not even all of the trolls and cyber-bullies and phishers out there. It’s something far worse. And it may already have its hooks in your brain…

4.30pm – 5.30pm MAKE-UP WORKSHOP WITH SHAUNE HARRISON
Shaune Harrison and Oscar winning Mark Coulier, Prosthetic makeup artist and Prosthetic makeup designer on World War Z will be attending this year’s GrimmFest.
Shaune and Mark (TBC) ran a huge team of special effects make up and prosthetic artists on the movie, creating a whole world of zombies, a truly daunting task. They will be joining us at GRIMMFEST, Manchester’s genre film festival (3rd – 6th Oct) to tell us all about their work on WWZ and a whole bunch of other Hollywood genre classics, including the HARRY POTTER, STAR WARS, and ALIEN movies, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, CAPTAIN AMERICA: FIRST AVENGER, CONAN THE BARBARIAN and many others.

The Dancehouse
7.00PM – 8.37pm HELLRAISER I, II OR III
Something special for Clive Barker fans at this years GRIMMFEST. We’ll give YOU the chance to vote for which movie from the series you’d like us to screen HELLRAISER, HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II or HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH.
The screening will be hosted by members of the cast from the HELLRAISER movies who will introduce the film and talk about their work on the movies.

8.37pm – 9.00pm HELLRAISER Q&A

9.20pm – 10.20pm SFX SESSION WITH SHAUNE HARRISON

10.45pm – 11.00pm THE GUEST (SHORT)

11.00pm – 12.30pm JUG FACE
USA; Director: Chad Crawford Kinkle; Starring: Sean Bridgers; Lauren Ashley Carter; Kaitlin Cullum
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: An eerie, atmospheric and esoteric slice of backwoods gothic, that has all of the familiar tropes of the genre, but takes them in a direction all its own. The involvement of exec-producer Lucky McKee and actors Sean Bridgers and Lauren Ashley Carter might lead one to expect a full-on gorefest akin to THE WOMAN but writer-director Chad Crawford Kinkle opts for a subtler, moodier, more measured approach, closer to the work of Flannery O’Connor and Philip Ridley’s THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON, than the howling ferocity of Jack Ketchum. That’s not to say it isn’t pretty damned nasty though…

 

Saturday 5th October – Lass O’Gowrie and The Dancehouse, Manchester.

GRIMMFEST FRINGE @ Lass O’Gowrie
11.00am – 11.16am OUT THERE (SHORT)

11.20am – 11.36am SLEEP WORKING (SHORT)

11.36am – 1.00pm MODUS ANOMALI
Indonesia; Director: Joko Anwar; Starring: Rio Dewanto; Hannah Al Rashid; Izzi Isman
Year: 2012
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Offering a particularly nasty twist on that old thriller standby, the amnesiac protagonist, this taut psychological thriller continually toys with narrative expectations, while giving you all of the clues you need to understand what is really going on. Just remember: nothing is as it seems.

1.10pm – 1.40pm CHRIS FOWLER Q&A on FILM FREAK BOOK

The Dancehouse

2.00pm – 3.27pm THE HUMAN RACE
USA; Director: Paul Hough;Starring: Paul McCarthy-Boyington; Eddie McGee; Trista Robinson
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: The latest in a long tradition of fiction and films, ranging from THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME to THE TENTH VICTIM to BATTLE ROYALE and THE HUNGER GAMES in which characters must struggle for survival in the name of entertainment, this slick, gripping and witty riff on Stephen King’s classic short story THE LONG WALK offers a gruelling reminder that the term “marathon” derives from a famously brutal battle.

3.30pm – 3.55pm SAMUEL AND EMILY VS. THE WORLD (SHORT)

4.00pm – 5.43pm FOUND

6.00pm – 7.37pm KISS OF THE DAMNED
USA; Director: Xan Cassavetes; Writer: Xan Cassavetes;Starring: Joséphine de La Baume; Milo Ventimiglia; Roxane Mesquida
Year: 2012
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: The doomed vampire romance has been horribly debased in recent years with the advent of TWILIGHT and the plethora of sequels, spin-offs, and cash-ins that have followed. Enter Xan Cassavetes, daughter of actor / director John and actress Gena Rowlands, and sister of actor / director Nick, who seems to have renounced the family tradition of gritty, jazz-tinged all-American cinematic naturalism in favour of something rather more… European. A deliciously decadent throwback to the works of Jean Rollin and Jess Franco, with a pounding prog rock soundtrack, this is a noble attempt to reclaim the vampire movie from a generation of sullen, sulky teenagers, and offer something a little more adult instead.

8.00pm – 9.30pm SURPRISE FILM

10.10pm – 11.50pm BIG BAD WOLVES
Israel; Directors: Aharon Keshales; Navot Papushado; Starring: Guy Adler; Lior Ashkenazi; Dvir Benedek
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Keshales and Papushado’s much-anticipated follow-up to 2010?s critically-acclaimed RABIES again features several lives brought into violent collision and conflict. A gripping, black-hearted, starkly brutal psychological thriller, constantly challenging and unpredictable, laced with bitter ironies and offering a cogent and cold-eyed analysis of Israeli machismo run rampant, this is a relentless journey into the heart of moral confusion and self-justifying sadism that will leave you shaking.

12.05pm – 1.44pm JOHN DIES AT THE END
USA; Director: Don Coscarelli; Starring: Chase Williamson; Rob Mayes; Paul Giamatti
Year: 2012
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Adapting David Wong’s wild, weird, and wonderful cult horror novel, with its dazzling and disturbing shifts in mood from rib-tickling to bone-chilling (often within the same sentence) was never going to be an easy task for any filmmaker.. Enter PHANTASM creator and genre legend Don Coscarelli, who previously did such a remarkable job with Joe R. Lansdale’s equally-challenging BUBBA HO-TEP. Suffice to say, he nailed it. The results are… off the wall.

 

Sunday 6th October – Lass O’Gowrie and The Dancehouse, Manchester.

GRIMMFEST FRINGE @ Lass O’Gowrie

11.00am – 12.40pm THANATAMORPHOSE
Spain; Director: Éric Falardeau; Starring: Émile Beaundry; Eryka Cantieri; Roch-Denis Gagnon
Year: 2012
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Translating the mental decay of Polanski’s REPULSION into physical terms, and featuring jaw-droppingly realistic SFX by the infamous Remy Couture, the only make-up artist to find himself on trial for “moral corruption through propagation of obscene material,” this cold, deliberately-paced, emotionally-harrowing, relentlessly grim and downbeat study of someone quite literally falling apart as their life goes into a tail-spin is most definitely not for the squeamish.

The Dancehouse
1.00pm – 2.27pm THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
USA; Director: Jonathan Zarantonello; Starring: Barbara Steele; Ray Wise; Erica Leerhsen
Year: 2012
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Marking the return to the big screen of the legendary Barbara Steele, together with an all (cult) star cast in a twisted little tale of maternal smothering, creepy predatory children, and lurid revenge, this dark, giallo-styled gothic melodrama, with its damaged, yet oddly sympathetic aging female protagonist, recalls the films Bette Davis made in the 60s, such as Seth Holt’s THE NANNY or Robert Aldrich’s WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE and HUSH… HUSH… SWEET CHARLOTTE, simultaneously playing on its lead actress’s iconic status, while giving her her strongest role in years. It’s not to be missed.

3.00pm – 4.35pm WITHER
Sweden; Director: Sonny Laguna; Tommy Wiklund; Starring:Patrik Almkvist; Lisa Henni; Patrick Saxe
Year: 2012
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Combining the more conventional flesh-eating zombie archetype with some of the more arcane elements of Nordic folk mythology, this second feature from maverick movie madmen Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund plays like a knowing Swedish homage to the demonic possessions of THE EVIL DEAD, before beginning its bloody descent into demented nightmare.

5.00pm – 6.20pm STALLED
UK; Director: Christian James; Starring: Dan Palmer; Antonia Bernath; Tamaryn Payne
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Splicing the currently-popular confined-space claustrophobic horror scenario with social embarrassment, broad-brush satire and some good, old-fashion British toilet humour, this affably absurdist and genre-smart horror comedy pitches a likeable loser hero against overwhelming odds in a impossibly tight spot, in a manner that is simultaneously gripping and ridiculous, while offering vicarious gratification for anyone who has ever harboured resentment against their snotty co-workers.

6.20pm – 6.50pm THE BODY + SHELLSHOCKED (SHORTS)

6.50pm – 7.10pm STALLED, THE BODY + SHELLSHOCKED Q&A

7.30pm – 9.00pm THE MACHINE
UK; Director: Caradog W. James; Starring: Toby Stephens; Caity Lotz; Denis Lawson
Year: 2013
GRIMM’S EYE VIEW: Beautifully shot and thought-provoking, Caradog James’ new sci-fi thriller, successfully depicts the age-old conflict between science and creativity, dealing with the problems that face mankind when our inventions begin to threaten our ideals and moral conscience. At times bleak and bold but always cool, THE MACHINE comes on like a later day BLADE RUNNER, set in a dystopian future that is teetering on the edge of disaster. Lotz, (The Pact) plays the Machine,with endearing innocence that covers just a hint of menace. As her creator’s (Toby Stephens) superiors try to turn her into a fighting machine we recognise with horror that she could easily kill everyone around her, with ease.

9.30pm onwards AFTERPARTY

Tickets to GrimmFest 2013 are avalible Here