Grimmfest is back for its 15th year! Running from October 6 to October 8 in Manchester, the festival promises to bring the best and scariest horror has to offer.
The first wave of announced films includes quite a few J-horror films thanks to the recent appointment of J-horror expert Leonie Rowland as a festival co-director. Producer Rachel Richardson-Jones and Dr. Linnie Blake were also appointed to the festival’s core leadership team.
One of those films is Banmei Takahashi’s 1988 classic, Door. It’s never been screened outside of Japan and, in fact, it was believed lost for nearly 30 years. Door is a mix of deadpan humor, a home invasion movie, and a stalker thriller. The film will have its international premiere at BIFAN in South Korea in July. In Door,
“Neglected by her workaholic husband, and alone in their sterile modern apartment, a timid Tokyo housewife finds herself under siege by an ever-pushier door-to-door salesman. Nerves frayed by petty building management regulations, busybody neighbors, and the constant tantrums of her spoilt, over-demanding young son, she must contend with the salesman’s escalating obsession, as his actions grow ever more sinister and sexually predatory until events boil over in a conclusion that is both horrific and hilarious. It’s a film you really won’t want to miss.”
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Also from Japan is Kenichi Ugana’s Love Will Tear Us Apart, a satirical slasher and psychological thriller with some martial arts thrown in for good measure.
“The combined force of Door, which has me double-checking my own locks at night, and Love Will Tear Us Apart, the sheer weirdness of which I am still reeling from months later, reminds us not only that Japanese horror was once at the forefront of the genre, but that it still very much is,” says co-director and expert in Japanese horror cinema Leonie Rowland.
There, there’s director Raymond Wood’s queer revenge tale Faceless After Dark. Inspired by star and co-writer Jenna Kannell’s experience after starring in Terrifier, the film follows “an up-and-coming actress confronting the fall-out of appearing in a successful but critically reviled clown-themed slasher movie.”
Grimmfest passes are available now.
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