Best Film Screenings in the North (26 Nov-2 Dec)

The best film events happening in the North this week, including Mark Cousins-Mogwai collaboration Atomic and folk horror classic The Blood on Satan's Claw

The Blood on Satan's Claw

Joining The Wickerman and The Witchfinder General as the third prong of the Unholy Trinity, The Blood on Satan's Claw is one of the building blocks of the UK’s folk horror tradition. Like those better known films, The Blood on Satan's Claw has atmosphere to burn and mainlines most of its terror from the inherent creepiness of the bucolic British countryside.

Set in the 17th century, it centres on the teens of a village who are slowly giving themselves over to the devil when the body of a beast is discovered buried in a field by a dopy farmhand. When the kids try to revive the demon with blood, it’s left to the village’s adults to put a stop to the satan worshiping – and they do so with glee.

If the film feels uneven, that’s because it was initially conceived as a portmanteau, and its three strands have been shut-and-cut together. These narrative flaws are easy to overlook, however, when the horror is this moody and unsettling.

27 Nov, FACT, Liverpool, 6pm

The Promised Land

2016 has been a cruel year. Along with music (Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen) and comedy (Victoria Wood, Caroline Aherne, Gene Wilder), film culture has been taking the hits too. One of the biggest losses is that of Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, whose films like Ashes and Diamonds and Innocent Sorcerers helped pathe the way for other great Polish filmmakers like Jerzy Skolimowski and Roman Polanski. He was also a great filmmaker in his own right, and The Promised Land, a rich portrayal of 19th century class struggles, is one of his best. The film follows three Polish laborers from different social, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds who overcome their differences and work together. It’s rarely screened, so don’t miss this big screen outing.

27 Nov, Liverpool Small Cinema, 6pm

Orphée

This is Jean Cocteau’s poetic, modern-day take exploring the myth of Orpheus (actually, his second of three takes, the other two being Blood of a Poet and Le Testament d'Orphee). The film’s focus is the sensitive young poet of the title, who’s having night time visits from Princess Death, and it appears she might have the hots for him – so much so that Death arranges for Orpheus’ wife to have a little accident so she can be sucked down into the underworld and out of the picture. It’s basically your typical boy meets death rom-com, in other words. Cocteau made some great and utterly unique films. Orphée may be his best.

27 Nov, HOME, Manchester, 6.15pm

Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise

Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise, Mark Cousins’ bracing cine-essay on the history of the nuclear age, made to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, comes to Leeds this week, and at the filmmakers request it’ll be played loud. Cousins eschews his trademark voiceover, and instead a brooding score by Scottish band Mogwai provides a nightmarish soundscape to the film's impressionistic collage of archive clips.

29 Nov, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds, 6.30pm

Akira

Katsuhiro Otomo’s berserk anime is still stunning 28 years on from blowing the minds of movie fans back in the late 80s. Set in the metropolis of Neo-Tokyo three decades after an atomic bomb has been dropped on the Japanese capital, it follows a gang of cyberpunk biker teens who get embroiled with a group of telekinetic sages. File with Blade Runner, Terminator and The Thing as one of the sci-fi classics of its era.

30 Nov, Texture, Manchester, 7pm