Grimmfest, Manchester’s International Festival of Fantastic Film, has announced the first titles from its 2023 programme, held at its regular venue, the Odeon Great Northern, from 6-8 October.
This is the festival’s 15th year, and we are proud that our core leadership team currently includes three female directors: film producer Rachel Richardson-Jones and academics Dr. Linnie Blake and Leonie Rowland.
Never screened outside of Japan and believed lost for nearly 30 years, 1988’s Door, directed by Banmei Takahashi, blends deadpan domestic comedy, stalker thriller and bloody home invasion horror. After a belated international premiere at BIFAN in South Korea this July, it will make its European debut at Grimmfest.
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 neighbours and the constant tantrums of her over-demanding young son, she must contend with the salesman’s escalating obsession with her. His actions grow ever-more sinister and sexually predatory, until events boil over in a conclusion that is both horrific and hilarious…
The festival will also host the UK premiere Kenichi Ugana’s new film, Love Will Tear Us Apart; a riotous roller-coaster ride through genre convention, encompassing dark and deadly romance, satiric slasher movie, bizarro psychological thriller and even some martial arts mayhem. A childhood act of kindness binds a timid young woman to a sinister and violent guardian angel, doggedly following her, protecting her – and terrifying her.
Outside of this year’s J-Horror strand, Raymond Wood’s queercore feminist revenge slasher Faceless After Dark receives its regional premiere. Inspired by lead and co-writer Jenna Kanell’s own experiences in the wake of starring in Terrifier, the film combines splatter, satire, vicarious vengeance, and a twist of sly metacinematic mischief to provide a pointed critique of the more questionable aspects of the horror genre and the ways in which fame in an era of toxic social media can prove a truly Faustian bargain.
“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.
More as it comes our way.
