GRIMMFEST, Manchester's Festival of Horror, Cult and Fantastic Film, is partnering with MINI CINI, the deluxe 4K, 7.1 surround sound boutique cinema, for a season of exclusive screenings of much-loved genre classics.
Kicking off the season, on Friday May 27th, there's a chance to experience the visually stunning new 4K remaster of Hitchcock's seminal genre-defining masterpiece PSYCHO, and to revisit Richard Franklin's belated and oft-under-appreciated 80s sequel, PSYCHO 2. Lensed by the great Dean Cundey, and boasting a slyly subversive screenplay by Tom Holland, it also provides a nice appetiser for the second programme in the season.
Friday June 10th sees more 80s spawned mischief, with a big screen outing for Holland's directorial debut, FRIGHT NIGHT; a cunning combination of comedy, creepiness, and coming of age narrative that has real heart – with a stake through it. Coupled with this, the film which saw Joel Schumaker cement his signature style: S.E. Hinton-style teen alienation with fangs, in the much-loved Brat Pack Camp Vamp classic, THE LOST BOYS.
Friday June 24th offers an EXORCIST double bill, featuring William Friedkin's original ground-breaking, generation-traumatising, head-spinning classic alongside William Peter Blatty's smart, cerebral, and chilling sequel, EXORCIST 3, which balances its thought-provoking theological paradoxes with some of the most nightmarish jump-scares in the history of cinema.
Friday July 8th, in honour of its 30th Anniversary, a screening of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA; Francis Ford Coppola's sumptuously-designed, visually startling, near-operatic take on the tormented, predatory Transylvanian count, in which Gary Oldman channels Bela Lugosi, Anthony Hopkins chews the furniture, and Diamanda Galas voices the vampires. Paired with it, and keeping with the number 30, David Slade and Steve Niles' gritty and genre-savvy mash up of Richard Matheson and John W. Campbell, the ice-bound vampire neo-Western, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT.
And bringing the season to a close, on Saturday July 23rd, a chance to experience the evolution of cinemas most-celebrated Xenomorphs, in an ALIEN all-dayer, featuring the director's cuts of Ridley Scott's ALIEN and James Cameron's ALIENS, a rare opportunity to see the original work cut of David Fincher's ALIEN 3, and discover what the director himself intended, before the Studio got their sticky fingers on it, and a chance to revisit Jean-Pierre Jeunet's oft-overshadowed ALIEN RESURRECTION, and discover a far sharper, more mischievously malicious film than you might remember.
Festival Director Simeon Halligan said: “Cinema is a shared experience. After two years of pandemic, people have got used to staying at home, watching films online. This collaboration with Mini Cini is a means of reminding people of the joys of seeing a film together, on a big screen, with surround-sound. Plus, with food, drink and a bar offering alcoholic drinks, brought to your seat while you watch the films, this is a luxury viewing experience you simply cannot get at home!”