CURSE: Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
The first feature from festival programmer, author, and Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies founder Kier-La Janisse, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horrorrepresents a mammoth undertaking for a debut filmmaker. Drawing on a history as deep as the Earth that claws back those in pursuit of progress, and boldly (rightly) claiming its status as the definitive article on a mode as dense and as labyrinthine as the forests, fields, faiths, and folkloric tales to which folk horror owes its lifeforce, Janisse compiles over 200 films discussed by over 50 genre experts to commit to film a work that is devilishly devourable.
All of our screenings are 18+ unless otherwise stated, the film starts at the advertised time above.
Arguably the defining cult film of the Reagan era, the feature debut of Alex Cox is a genre-busting mash-up of atomic-age science fiction, post-punk anarchism, and conspiracy paranoia, all shot through with heavy doses of deadpan humour and offbeat philosophy. After quitting his dead-end supermarket job, young punk Otto (Emilio Estevez) is initiated as a “repo man” after a chance encounter with ...
Welcome to Jurassic Park. In Steven Spielberg’s dino classic paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park’s mastermind, billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), assures everyone that the faci...
Make A Scene Film Club presents a true icon: Victor/Victoria —the Oscar winning 1982 musical comedy that said "what if Julie Andrews was a woman playing a man playing a woman?" and goes for it! Directed by Blake Edwards , best know for the Pink Panther films this gloriously tangled farce is set in 1930s Paris a world of smoky cabarets, tuxedos and rigid gender expectations where Andrews' down on...
After witnessing the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas), police detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington), and his partner Jonesy (John Goodman), are soon investigating another murderer whose mode of operation is eerily similar to that of Reese. During the investigation, Hobbes meets theology professor Gretta Milano (Embeth Davidtz), who introduces him to the world of the occult...
Join us for Manchester’s only cult film pub quiz! Every other month our own in-house quizmaster, comedian Beth Moore, writes a completely original five round quiz and it takes place in Screen One – our 100-seater cinema! That’s right, a film quiz, in a cinema! Which means you can expect multimedia rounds showcasing a range of questions from the super nerdy to accessible trivia questions for all (p...
UrbanArtistry Presents: Blue Light & Blurred Memories
Fri 27 Mar
Blue Light: When filmmaker Sophie Sonntag is hired by the Berlin transport company BVG to make a promotional film, she has no idea that it's all fake and that she is part of a large-scale art production. After filming, all the memory cards disappeared, but a few days later they anonymously landed in her mailbox. She investigated and decided to make a film about it. The result: a 90-minute docudra...
With this magnificent epic of experimental cinema, Akerman offers a feminist perspective on the stifling and frustratingly recurrent aspects of everyday life. Dominated by a commanding performance from Delphine Seyrig, the film sparingly depicts a homemaker and part-time prostitute struggling to raise and provide for her teenage son. As her patient, highly choreographed routines become strained, ...
From visionary director Harmony Korine comes a bold new vision of the seasonal American ritual known as ‘spring break’ – the bacchanalia of bikinis, beach parties and beer bongs that draws hordes of college students to the Florida coast and elsewhere each year. Brit (Ashley Benson), Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) are best friends anxious to cut loose on th...
When he acquires a different kind of show for his station, a sleazy cable-TV programmer sees his life and the future of media spin out of control. Max Renn (James Woods) is looking for fresh new content for his TV channel when he happens across some illegal S&M style broadcasts called “Videodrome”. Embroiling his girlfriend Nick (Deborah Harry) in his search for the source, his journey begins to b...
Ghost in the Shell remains one of the most influential anime films of all time, partly made in response to Katsuhiro Otomo’s seminal 1988 Akira, and inspiring a continuing franchise as well as a Hollywood live-action remake with Scarlett Johansson. Yet it’s Oshii’s original vision that remains the most powerfully prophetic, raising philosophical questions around transhumanism that are more relevan...
Ladies and gentlemen please be upstanding as we pay our respects to Vine. #RIPVine is a tribute to the six second icons that have given so much joy to millions the world over and provided the inspiration for TikTok's global domination. Back in 2018, Pilot Light TV Festival and Live Cinema UK curated two big-screen compilations of the all-time greatest Vine loops, presented as part of the BFI’s ‘...
To celebrate Transgender Day of Visibilty, we are bringing back the now cult classic, The People's Joker on 1st April. This revolutionary DIY parody film and hilarious reimagining of the classic autobiographical coming-of-age story follows an unconfident, closeted trans girl as she moves to Gotham City to make it big as a comedian by joining the cast of UCB Live - a government-sanctioned late n...
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages and early modern era suffered from the same ills as psychiatric patients diagnosed with hysteria in the film's own time. Far from a dry dissertation on the topic, the film itself is a...
In a time of superstition and magic, a young apprentice hunter, Robyn Goodfellowe, journeys to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last wolf pack. While exploring the forbidden lands outside the city walls, Robyn befriends a free-spirited girl, Mebh, a member of a mysterious tribe rumored to have the ability to transform into wolves by night. As they search for Mebh’s missing mother, Robyn unc...
An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain ( Dev Patel ), King Arthur's reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men. Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, and schemers in what becomes a deeper journey to define...
In the isolated village of Goksung, an inexplicable plague descends upon the community, leaving its victims marked by crimson boils and violent, unhinged behavior. Officer Jong-gu ( Kwak Do-won ) is drawn into a labyrinth of fear and suspicion, first attributing the deaths to mundane causes, then to the enigmatic presence of a Japanese stranger ( Jun Kunimura ) who lingers at the margins of every ...
Ben Wheatley’s 2011 breakout, Kill List , follows former soldier- turned- hitman Jay ( Neil Maskell ) and his partner Gal ( Michael Smiley ) in the wake of a disastrous assignment in Kiev. Lured by the promise of “ one last job”, a contract to eliminate three specific targets, the men carry out their killings with escalating brutality. Yet as the list dwindles, they begin to glimpse the shadowy, r...
Northern Folklore Archive is a duo of oddity-lovers who seek all things mysterious and unknown. Their mission is to document as much folklore from the North of the U.K. as humanly possible! Get involved with their new film club: Go Folk Yourself, exploring folk horror flicks from across the globe. Film synopsis: The Ritual is a 2017 folk horror that follows four longtime friends on their ...
It's rural England in the early 18th century. A deformed skull is discovered - it has an intact eye and strange fur but when that skull disappears the village becomes afflicted by its supernatural power. Starring Linda Hayden and Patrick Wymark, this quintessential folk horror, written by Robert Wynne-Simmons, is a heady concoction of old-style horror and sex, served up in an unnervingly modern v...
CURSE: Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
Sun 5 Apr
The first feature from festival programmer, author, and Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies founder Kier-La Janisse, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror represents a mammoth undertaking for a debut filmmaker. Drawing on a history as deep as the Earth that claws back those in pursuit of progress, and boldly (rightly) claiming its status as the definitive article on a mod...
Arguably the defining cult film of the Reagan era, the feature debut of Alex Cox is a genre-busting mash-up of atomic-age science fiction, post-punk anarchism, and conspiracy paranoia, all shot through with heavy doses of deadpan humour and offbeat philosophy. After quitting his dead-end supermarket job, young punk Otto (Emilio Estevez) is initiated as a “repo man” after a chance encounter with ...
Welcome to Jurassic Park. In Steven Spielberg’s dino classic paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park’s mastermind, billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), assures everyone that the faci...
Make A Scene Film Club presents a true icon: Victor/Victoria —the Oscar winning 1982 musical comedy that said "what if Julie Andrews was a woman playing a man playing a woman?" and goes for it! Directed by Blake Edwards , best know for the Pink Panther films this gloriously tangled farce is set in 1930s Paris a world of smoky cabarets, tuxedos and rigid gender expectations where Andrews' down on...
After witnessing the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas), police detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington), and his partner Jonesy (John Goodman), are soon investigating another murderer whose mode of operation is eerily similar to that of Reese. During the investigation, Hobbes meets theology professor Gretta Milano (Embeth Davidtz), who introduces him to the world of the occult...
Join us for Manchester’s only cult film pub quiz! Every other month our own in-house quizmaster, comedian Beth Moore, writes a completely original five round quiz and it takes place in Screen One – our 100-seater cinema! That’s right, a film quiz, in a cinema! Which means you can expect multimedia rounds showcasing a range of questions from the super nerdy to accessible trivia questions for all (p...
UrbanArtistry Presents: Blue Light & Blurred Memories
Fri 27 Mar
Blue Light: When filmmaker Sophie Sonntag is hired by the Berlin transport company BVG to make a promotional film, she has no idea that it's all fake and that she is part of a large-scale art production. After filming, all the memory cards disappeared, but a few days later they anonymously landed in her mailbox. She investigated and decided to make a film about it. The result: a 90-minute docudra...
With this magnificent epic of experimental cinema, Akerman offers a feminist perspective on the stifling and frustratingly recurrent aspects of everyday life. Dominated by a commanding performance from Delphine Seyrig, the film sparingly depicts a homemaker and part-time prostitute struggling to raise and provide for her teenage son. As her patient, highly choreographed routines become strained, ...
From visionary director Harmony Korine comes a bold new vision of the seasonal American ritual known as ‘spring break’ – the bacchanalia of bikinis, beach parties and beer bongs that draws hordes of college students to the Florida coast and elsewhere each year. Brit (Ashley Benson), Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) are best friends anxious to cut loose on th...
When he acquires a different kind of show for his station, a sleazy cable-TV programmer sees his life and the future of media spin out of control. Max Renn (James Woods) is looking for fresh new content for his TV channel when he happens across some illegal S&M style broadcasts called “Videodrome”. Embroiling his girlfriend Nick (Deborah Harry) in his search for the source, his journey begins to b...
Ghost in the Shell remains one of the most influential anime films of all time, partly made in response to Katsuhiro Otomo’s seminal 1988 Akira, and inspiring a continuing franchise as well as a Hollywood live-action remake with Scarlett Johansson. Yet it’s Oshii’s original vision that remains the most powerfully prophetic, raising philosophical questions around transhumanism that are more relevan...
Ladies and gentlemen please be upstanding as we pay our respects to Vine. #RIPVine is a tribute to the six second icons that have given so much joy to millions the world over and provided the inspiration for TikTok's global domination. Back in 2018, Pilot Light TV Festival and Live Cinema UK curated two big-screen compilations of the all-time greatest Vine loops, presented as part of the BFI’s ‘...
To celebrate Transgender Day of Visibilty, we are bringing back the now cult classic, The People's Joker on 1st April. This revolutionary DIY parody film and hilarious reimagining of the classic autobiographical coming-of-age story follows an unconfident, closeted trans girl as she moves to Gotham City to make it big as a comedian by joining the cast of UCB Live - a government-sanctioned late n...
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages and early modern era suffered from the same ills as psychiatric patients diagnosed with hysteria in the film's own time. Far from a dry dissertation on the topic, the film itself is a...
In a time of superstition and magic, a young apprentice hunter, Robyn Goodfellowe, journeys to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last wolf pack. While exploring the forbidden lands outside the city walls, Robyn befriends a free-spirited girl, Mebh, a member of a mysterious tribe rumored to have the ability to transform into wolves by night. As they search for Mebh’s missing mother, Robyn unc...
An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain ( Dev Patel ), King Arthur's reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men. Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, and schemers in what becomes a deeper journey to define...
In the isolated village of Goksung, an inexplicable plague descends upon the community, leaving its victims marked by crimson boils and violent, unhinged behavior. Officer Jong-gu ( Kwak Do-won ) is drawn into a labyrinth of fear and suspicion, first attributing the deaths to mundane causes, then to the enigmatic presence of a Japanese stranger ( Jun Kunimura ) who lingers at the margins of every ...
Ben Wheatley’s 2011 breakout, Kill List , follows former soldier- turned- hitman Jay ( Neil Maskell ) and his partner Gal ( Michael Smiley ) in the wake of a disastrous assignment in Kiev. Lured by the promise of “ one last job”, a contract to eliminate three specific targets, the men carry out their killings with escalating brutality. Yet as the list dwindles, they begin to glimpse the shadowy, r...
Northern Folklore Archive is a duo of oddity-lovers who seek all things mysterious and unknown. Their mission is to document as much folklore from the North of the U.K. as humanly possible! Get involved with their new film club: Go Folk Yourself, exploring folk horror flicks from across the globe. Film synopsis: The Ritual is a 2017 folk horror that follows four longtime friends on their ...
It's rural England in the early 18th century. A deformed skull is discovered - it has an intact eye and strange fur but when that skull disappears the village becomes afflicted by its supernatural power. Starring Linda Hayden and Patrick Wymark, this quintessential folk horror, written by Robert Wynne-Simmons, is a heady concoction of old-style horror and sex, served up in an unnervingly modern v...
CURSE: Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
Sun 5 Apr
The first feature from festival programmer, author, and Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies founder Kier-La Janisse, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror represents a mammoth undertaking for a debut filmmaker. Drawing on a history as deep as the Earth that claws back those in pursuit of progress, and boldly (rightly) claiming its status as the definitive article on a mod...
