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CINEMATIC GEMS STILL TO BE DISCOVERED AT GRIMM UP NORTH!

At any festival, there are always some films that get more attention than others. Either the advance word is good, or a degree of notoriety has been acquired already, there are famous or popular actors or directors attached, or the film is part of a familiar brand or franchise.

So, as we ready ourselves for the first day of the festival, we thought it might be an idea to highlight a few of the films you may not be familiar with, but really shouldn’t miss.

Revenge: A Love Story

(Saturday 10.15pm)

Police are investigating a serial killer who targets officers’ pregnant wives. A suspect is eventually captured and brutally interrogated, but finally has to be released without charge. But is he actually innocent? 

Following standing ovations for screenings of little seen Thai movie SLICE and Korean revenge movie BEDEVILLED last, we’re delighted to be presenting this darkly-glittering cinematic gem from Hong Kong; the latest release from Josie Ho‘s 852 films, and the follow-up to Pang Ho Cheung‘s full-on splatter satire DREAM HOME also screened last year. Successfully balancing gripping character drama with harrowing, visceral horror, this smart. sharptly-scripted shocker has real psychological and emotional depth underpinning director Ching-Po Wong often disturbing and graphically violent imagery. Censors have made a series of cuts to the film in its home territory, but we will be screening the film in all of its emotionally intense and gory glory.

Urban Explorers

(Friday, 5.25pm)

A chance for any armchair urban explorers out there to discover the disused and derelict architecture beneath the city of Berlin in the company of a murderous psychopath.

Suspenseful, spooky, and at times downright nasty, this tense, claustrophobic and visually stunning cat-and-mouse thriller combines striking and original locations with deaths gruesome enough to shake even the most hardened gorehounds. Just the thing to screen here in macabre Manchester, which has a vast underground cityscape of its own - directly beneath our festival screening venue!

Kidnapped

(Friday, 10.00pm)

A middle class Spanish family move into their new home, unaware that they are about to be the target for a gang of ruthless career criminals who know exactly how to apply pressure to get what they want…

The violation of one’s home, the threatening of one’s family, the destruction of one’s comfortable life. These universal, primal fears are the beating heart of this terse and remorseless home invasion thriller from the producers of the recent hit movie CELL 211. Cruel and claustrophobic, the film offers a nightmare vision of a familiar environment turned into an inescapable trap, where bonds of love and loyalty start to break down and fly apart in a tooth and nail struggle for survival. A tight, brutal little thriller that does not let up for a second, and goes to some very dark places indeed.

Adam Chaplin

(Friday 12.10 am - or is that Saturday Morning?)

When his wife is brutally murdered by depraved gangsters, implacable bad ass Adam Chaplin enlists dark and demonic forces in order to avenge her. The corrupt and fallen city of Heaven Valley won’t know what hit it. Brutally and repeatedly. In the face.

For our Friday Night Midnight movie, we present the World Premiere of this phantasmagorical full-on Faustian revenge fantasy, which mashes up THE CROW, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR and the most outrageous of 80s straight to-video vileness to create a new benchmark in demented, bone-crunching action and blood-soaked carnage. Nasty and blackly funny in equal measures, this is a guaranteed Grindhouse cult hit of tomorrow..... If you enjoyed last year’s late night screening of ALIENS VS NINJAS, you’re going to love this.

Deadheads

(Saturday 12.25am - or is that Sunday Morning?)

Slacker dude Mike Kellerman wakes up to discover that he’s been dead for two years and is now a zombie. The last thing he remembers, he was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Encouraged by fellow undead dude, Brent, he determines to go ahead with the plan…

Championed by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, this zom-rom-com road movie combines splatter with patter, and plays like Day of the Dead re-imagined by Kevin Smith. Filled with stoner humour, pop-cultural references, and a surprising amount of romantic idealism, the film nevertheless doesn’t stint for a moment on the exploding heads, severed limbs and spilled guts, and delivers a twisted sucker punch ending that will touch the heart even as it sickens the stomach. A perfect Saturday night post-midnight treat.

The Dead

(Sunday, 1.50pm)

A zombie plague has torn an unnamed African country apart.  A stranded US military and African military deserter form an unlikely partnership as they cross the tundra in a beaten up vehicle, the engineer looking for a way back to the US and the deserter searching for his lost son both of them trying to survive the ever growing zombie holocaust.

THE DEAD was a film we couldn’t screen last year due to its other festival commitments. And that always rankled a little. So we’re delighted to offer a rare chance to see the Ford Brothers stunning debut feature on the big screen before its eventual UK release on Bluray and DVD. An allegorical exploration of western post-colonial guilt and the bitter legacy of decades of civil war and mismanaged Aid schemes wrapped up in a gripping and gory white-knuckle thriller, this plays like HOTEL RWANDA might had it been part of Lucio Fulci's Zombie series…