Celluloid Screams, Sheffield’s horror film festival, returns to the Showroom Cinema over the weekend of 23-25 October. Now in its seventh year the festival is in rude health. 2015 sees the best line-up yet featuring some of the best new horror from around the world. Along with a glittering array of feature and shorts, the allnighter returns with a classic feel ( A Nightmare on Elm Street, Phantasm, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and Re-Animator).
Some of the highlights of this year’s festival are:
He Never Died
An exceptionally prolonged life brings depression and a detachment. Jack buys stolen blood from a hospital intern, plays bingo daily, sleeps fourteen hours a day, watches television six hours a day, and lives alone. This is his life and he has shelled himself away from social interactions. The fuse is lit when Jack’s past comes back to rattle him. Jack must now walk the tight rope of sobriety and try to eat as few people as possible in this violent tale of personal responsibility and self worth . As it turns out, there are very few reasons to live when you can’t die.
Excess Flesh
Jill is obsessed with her new roommate Jennifer, a promiscuous and sexy hotshot in the LA Fashion scene. New to the city and recently single, Jill is unable to keep up as she binges and purges to stay thin; eventually hating herself and everyone around her. Her jealousy and rage spiral out of control — Jennifer has everything, and Jill wants to be just like her. If Jill can’t BE Jennifer, she must destroy her.
The Invitation
A haunted man attending a dinner party at the house he once called home becomes gripped with paranoia that his ex-wife and her new husband are harbouring an insidious agenda.
The Witch
New England, 1630. Upon threat of banishment by the church, an English farmer leaves his colonial plantation, relocating his wife and five children to a remote plot of land on the edge of an ominous forest — within which lurks an unknown evil. Strange and unsettling things begin to happen almost immediately — animals turn malevolent, crops fail, and one child disappears as another becomes seemingly possessed by an evil spirit. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, family members accuse teenage daughter Thomasin of witchcraft, charges she adamantly denies. As circumstances grow more treacherous, each family member’s faith, loyalty and love become tested in shocking and unforgettable ways.
They Look Like People
Suspecting that those around him are actually malevolent shape-shifters, a troubled man questions whether to protect his only friend from an impending war, or from himself.
Frofundo Rosso
The world famous Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin will be closing this year’s festival with a live re-scoring of Dario Argento’s Profundo Rosso. 2015 marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary Italian filmakers’s masterpiece. The band will also be treating to an audience to a selection of their worker after the screening finishes.
To book weekend passes and to find out more, visit the Celluloid Screams website.
