Grimmfest Sinks Its Teeth Into Horror and Genre Cinema For Another Year!
Grimmfest, Manchester’s International Festival of Fantastic Film, returns in 2026 to its usual setting of Manchester’s Odeon Great Northern for 4 days from the 8th of October to the 11th October, and brings with it a plethora of cinematic delights and the best in genre cinema.
Following the recent announcement of the feature line-up, the Grimmfest team have revealed the opening and closing films. This year’s festival will open with a special advanced screening of Hammer Films, definitive, uncensored 4K restoration of the horror classic DRACULA, while the UK premiere of VICTORIAN PSYCHO, starring Maika Monroe, will bring the festival to a suitably bloody close.
Grimmfest is also delighted to announce three themed shorts programmes. This year’s selection includes two World Premieres, two International Premieres, one European Premiere, eleven UK Premieres, two Regional Premieres and three Greater Manchester Premieres, alongside welcome returns from several Grimmfest favourites and exciting new discoveries.
WEIRDER TALES
Shorts that put contemporary twists on classic WEIRD TALES-style scenarios.
Bill Watterson, director of Grimmfest favourite DAVE MADE A MAZE, returns with the UK premiere of MIDNIGHT CITY, writer-actor Yuri Lowenthal’s pitch-perfect 1940s Film Noir pastiche with a supernatural twist.
Three gold prospectors face faith, conscience and carnivores in the northern UK premiere of Kelsey Bollig and VFX maestro Matthew DuVall’s Gothic Western creature feature THE BONES EXIST.
In the slums of Rio, visions of lost Carcosa haunt a reluctant drug trafficker in the ….. premiere of Nícolas Lobato and Thiago Tuchu’s gritty collision of social realism and Cosmic Horror, FAVELA AMARELA.
A medieval hermit encounters a hideously disfigured visitor from somewhere impossibly distant in the international premiere of Kevin Ray and Matthew Fisher’s haunting parable THE ANCHORESS.
Italian screen legend Franco Nero stars in the World premiere of Jacopo Marchini’s ferocious reimagining of Lovecraft’s THE TERRIBLE OLD MAN, while rave culture meets folk horror in the UK premiere of L.S. David and Miguel Solís’s trippy POV nightmare ANAX.
FUTURE TENSION
Contemporary fears projected into the worst of all possible futures, from the nightmarish to the blackly comic.
Fabio Langella’s QUI INSIEME explores love, sacrifice and male entitlement across a multiverse, a UK premiere. THE HIRING PROTOCOL, from François Choquene, turns the search for employment into a physically and psychologically punishing corporate nightmare, a UK premiere.
A depressed woman makes a terrible bargain with her AI therapy device in the world premiere of Paton Ashbrook’s HARVEST, while an astronaut faces the cost of saving a dead planet in Emanu Garnheim’s animated eco-parable ÅTERSÅDD, a UK premiere.
The Northern UK premiere of Ran Jing’s IMPRINT delivers an icy take on Western privilege and entitlement, while the World premiere of JC Farris’s A VIOLENT FLAMMABLE WORLD offers a sour, cyberpunk satire, where staying in credit is literally a matter of life and death.
Finally, a reconditioned military robot struggles with domestic servitude in Kerry Glennon’s gloriously gory splatter-satire RAGGOT, a UK premiere.
LAUGHING IN THE DARK
Because horror and humour make perfect bedfellows, this programme ranges from surreal comedy and social satire to scatological splatter.
Puberty gets messy in the greater Manchester premiere of Fernando Alle’s gross-out PIMPLE, while a sordid flat-share spawns something monstrous in the Greater Manchester premiere of Will Wightman’s live-action cartoon THIS PLACE IS A SH*THOLE.
Natasha Halevi returns with another Super-8 entry in her “Cute Existential Dread” series, MY LEFT HAND IS A PART OF ME, a darkly funny meditation on prejudice and body dysmorphia.
The UK premiere of Lukas Hassel’s UP CLOSE pitches a mordantly funny monologue somewhere between AMERICAN PSYCHO and Alan Bennett’s TALKING HEADS. Yes, seriously.
In the UK premiere of DAY OF THE DAD, James III combines splatter and social comedy as an overstressed father tries to keep his baby daughter asleep while the world goes to hell.
A delivery driver gets tangled up with three suspiciously friendly old ladies in the Northwest UK premiere of Diogo Abrantes and João Rito’s folk-art-meets-EC-comics gorefest KNITTING CLUB.
The team behind PASPOCALYPSE return with POCONGDORIE, a deadpan supernatural comedy about Dutch-Indonesian siblings clearing out their late mother’s house – and finding there’s more to remove than the furniture.
In the UK premiere of Jano Pita’s OPEN MIC, a struggling comedian’s anxieties take physical form, while the UK premiere of Pim Vogels’ FATUM turns an interview with a monstrous plutocrat into surreal nightmare territory.
And finally, a stranded traveller finds unlikely sanctuary in a black metal karaoke bar alongside a penguin in the UK premiere of Wannes Vanspauwen and Pol De Plecker’s droll, deadpan PITHEAD.
With a huge range of styles, themes and twisted sensibilities, this year’s shorts selection proves once again that when it comes to Grimmfest, good things really do come in small packages.
Weekend passes, day passes and individual tickets are available now: www.grimmfest.com
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