Grimmfest’s Grim Tidings from Jeremiah Kipp writer and director of Slapface

Grimmfest is back and even better than ever with more movies and madness to make the 13th edition one to remember. Taking place between the 7th to the 10th of October at Odeon Great Northern in Manchester UK there is also a hybrid online Grimmfest edition running 14th to the 17th Oct for people unable to attend the cinema event. You can find the full 2021 line up right HERE.

Recently voted one of best genre film festivals in the World by Movie maker magazine, Grimmfest is a truly independent film festival that started in 2009. Since then the fantastic festival has grown to become one of the most prestigious genre film festivals in Europe premiering the very best new movies from both new and established filmmakers from across the world.
This year our exclusive interview feature is back bringing you some insidious insights into the frightful folks whose horror films will be blowing audiences away at Grimmfest 2021.

Below we get some Grim Tidings from Jeremiah Kipp writer and director of Slapface

1. Tell us why you are at Grimmfest?
We are showing our feature film SLAFACE about a boy mourning the loss of his parents. He seeks out comfort in the form of a monster in the woods, with deadly consequences for everyone. We’re a low budget independent film that cares deeply about this story. Grimmfest is the perfect home for us.

Manchester has always been the place I most want to visit in England. As Bernard Sumner of New Order once said about the music that emerged from your tough Northern town, forming a band out of a strong desire to have something to say “destroyed the myth of being a pop star, of a musician being some sort of God that you had to worship.” They just got on with it by any means necessary. Grimmfest is carrying on that tradition in the world of horror filmmaking. I’m sure George Romero would have felt right at home there.

2. How did you get into horror?
As a child in rural New England, in the north-east of the United States, I grew up with my grandparents deep in the woods. They allowed me to watch horror movies because they felt it was just another version of fairy tales, with Laurie Strode replacing Little Red Riding Hood and Michael Myers replacing the witch.

Seeing “Dawn of the Dead” made me imagine living in a shopping mall; “Videodrome” had James Woods kissing pulsating lips on a television screen. I loved how these films pushed beyond reality to new frontiers. As I walked around in the forest after watching these beautiful and strange movies, I felt inspired to dream up my own stories of the fantastic.

3. What scares you the most?
I’m terrified of my mind being taken over by outside forces. The body snatchers who pursued Kevin McCarthy in 1956 and finally caught him in 1978 are uniquely deadly. They get you when you’re most vulnerable, in your sleep, and transform you into a pod person devoid of feelings, enthusiasms, passions and desires. That’s a fate worse than death. And who can forget Meg Tilly’s chilling declaration of their power in Abel Ferrara’s 1993 remake: “Where you gonna run? Where you gonna hide? Nowhere…because there’s no one like you left.”

4. Who or what is your favourite horror character?
Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Shelley’s classic novel is an incredible tragic figure. The middle section of the novel where he lives outside of the farmhouse imagining becoming friends with the people inside is haunting. The inevitable violence that follows shows that discontent and want is the best clay to mold a monster from. “I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart…”

5. What is the grimmest thing you ever saw?
Back in 1984, I was traumatized by the BBC film THREADS. This unsentimental and shattering depiction of nuclear war, devoid of music or even much plot, was grimness unlike any other. Only the Russian film COME AND SEE compares in pure horror. A few weeks ago I tried revisiting THREADS and only got ten minutes into the nuclear war (at the film’s midpoint) before shutting it off. Nightmares ensued for days afterwards. Even though I could see the stock footage, models, and oatmeal on actors faces doubling for radiation burns, my brain still processes that film as if I were 10 years old. A SERBIAN FILM and MARTYRS are clearly fictions, yet as far removed as THREADS is from Thatcher’s England it still feels chillingly grounded in brutal realism.

Slapface plays on Fri, Oct 8th, 2:35 PM @ Odeon Screen 6 and Sun, Oct 10th, 7:10 PM @ Odeon Screen 5 and you can find out more and book your ticket HERE.