Grimmfest 2017 at Vue, Printworks

The air is getting crisp, leaves are turning brown and Printworks is once again gearing up for another iteration of Manchester’s favourite festival of horror, cult and fantastic film. Treasured by fans of genre cinema and freaky films, Grimmfest is a staple of the Mancunian cinematic calendar, and we were excited to sneak a look at this year’s Grimmfest programme.

There’s a fiercely feminine feel to the proceedings this time around as Lora Burke’s serial killer goes dating with extreme results in Poor Agnes; whilst The Bride does Gothic Romance with a Russian Twist. Also of note is Natalia Leite’s college-set vigilante film M.F.A. which sees Francesca Eastwood follow in her father’s footsteps and Replace: a futuristic body horror flick featuring the talent of genre vet Barbara Crampton.

There’s a more testosterone-y whiff to the WWI set, Trench 11, which promises an old-fashioned, men-on-mission yarn about an Allied plan to send a shell-shocked tunneller into a bunker where the Germans have lost control of a biological weapon. Set closer to home – five minutes walk from the venue, in fact – is Habit: a local production which rather ominously promises to depict the the “dark heart, and sinister sub-cultures of the fair city of Manchester.”

We were enthused to hear that Tag, the latest film from high-energy, subversive Japanese auteur Sion Sono (Love Exposure, Tokyo Tribe) will be making an appearance at the festival. Meanwhile, the line-up also boasts the UK premiere of Ted Geoghegan’s festival favourite Mohawk – a western along the lines of Ulzana’s Raid and High Plains Drifter – which sounds like a cracker.

Fans of great cinema are mourning the loss of the late Tobe Hooper this year, but his nightmarish creation lives on in Leatherface, Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s rip-roaring prequel to Hooper’s seventies masterpiece, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The festival then goes out on a high(?) with Attack of the Adult Babies, a film described as a grotesque take on powerful perverts and sexual depravity.

Of course, that’s just the tip of the blood-soaked iceberg, Grimmfest’s four day programme contains over twenty features plus short films — more than enough to sate the appetites of Manchester’s gore-hounds.