Best Film Screenings in the North (11-18 Nov)

Little Shop of Horrors Sing Along

Frank Oz’s take on the Broadway musical based on Roger Corman's scuzzy original is a delight. A never-better Rick Moranis stars as a mild-mannered flower-shop attendant who becomes a slave to a carnivorous plant that demands to be fed – and it’s no Miracle-Gro it’s after, but a steady supply of human flesh. The singing is nothing to write home about – this being a sing-along screening means that won’t matter too much – but the songs are great. Best of all is a hilarious Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist hooked on his own supply of laughing gas.

12 Nov, Texture, Manchester, 3.30pm & 7.30pm

The Bride of Frankenstein

One of the great sequels, James Whale's gloriously camp follow-up to his plaintive take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Whale sets his ironic stall out early with a framing device that imagines Mary Shelley sitting around a fireplace with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron on a dark and stormy night, telling what happened to Frankenstein's monster after the village folk had at him with their pitchforks. Everyone knows the image of Elsa Lanchester as the reluctant re-animated bride with the lightning-streaked hair do, but Bride of Frankenstein is also worth cherishing for Whale’s mischievous humour and the stunning production design.

12 Nov, FACT, Liverpool, 5pm

Napoleon

Abel Gance’s epic cinematic take on Napoleon’s story from 1927 is returning to cinemas in a special digital presentation. At over five hours, this cut of the film is very rarely screened, and reports are it’s a masterpiece of silent cinema, right up there with Sunrise and Greed.

Getting it back in cinemas has been a Sisyphean task. “Several generations of staff at the BFI have worked on this project,” said Heather Stewart, Creative Director of the BFI. “Napoleon is a landmark in the history of cinema and we are grateful to all of the great talents who have helped us along the way but especially, of course, Kevin Brownlow for his indefatigable championing of the film and Carl Davis for his amazing score.”

13 Nov, FACT, Liverpool, 1pm

House Party

There are plenty of prestigious films screening in the BFI’s Black Star programme, but it’s great to see some less lofty but no less worthy films also making it back to the big screen. One example of this is Reginald Hudlin’s riotus 1990 comedy House Party, which features rap duo Kid 'n' Play as two teens throwing the coolest shindig in town. House Party has all the wit and fizz of other teen movies of its era, but within the colour and energy it has plenty of things to say about early 90s culture too.

16 Nov, Liverpool Small Cinema, 7pm

Blue Velvet

Blue Velvet starts with a young college student finding a rotting severed ear while strolling around his town's picket-fenced suburbs, and this mystery sends him on a feverish journey of sexual discovery and brings him into the world of a murderous psychopath (played with demented glee by Dennis Hopper).

David Lynch has made surreal art films (Eraserhead, Inland Empire) and more conventional narrative features (Elephant Man, The Straight Story) but Blue Velvet is one of the few where his two styles combine to devastating effect. Screening from a mint fresh digital prin at Leeds International Film Festival to mark the film’s 30th anniversary.

17 Nov, Hyde Park Picture House, 8pm