Northwest Film Event Highlights – July 2015

The evenings may be brighter but there’s something decidedly dark about the films showing in July.

We expect it from Grimm Up North. These guys seem intent on keeping our lust for the macabre sedated until Halloween rolls around again and this month they have two screenings that dissect the shady side of modern suburbia. David Lynch brought surreal into the mainstream with Blue Velvet (9 Jul) back in ’86, presenting us with an unsettling noir set to a backdrop of white picket fences. Fifteen years on, director Richard Kelly returned to the bleak corners of the ’burbs with the mysterious Donnie Darko (1 Jul), a film that, much like its twisted bunny antihero, was hard to shake. These suburban nightmares may have been released years apart but they share the same theory that good and evil often exist in the same, unsuspecting place. Catch both at Manchester Central Library.

Liverpool’s FACT continues the theme, throwing a little dystopian sci-fi into the mix for good measure. Blade Runner: The Final Cut (12 Jul) is Ridley Scott’s definitive vision for his 1982 classic and free from the tampering hands of studio execs. This final edit is the only version over which Scott had full editorial and artistic control; which means no more cumbersome narration and added action and atmosphere. Deckard’s hunt for fugitive replicants never looked so good.

In Manchester, HOME takes a look at the history of industrial music on 4 Jul with Industrial Soundtrack for the Urban Decay. Directed by Amélie Ravalec and Travis Collins, it’s the first film to truly inspect the cultural origins of the genre, taking viewers on a journey through the broken down cities of industrial Europe and introducing us to the founders and pioneers of the scene. Directors Ravalec and Collins will be joined by DJ Stephen Mallinder for a post-screening Q&A and DJ set.

Also in Manchester, Gorilla hosts Retro and Dangerous for their Summer of 96 double bill featuring popcorn classics Independence Day and Twister (26 Jul), harking back to an age when cinemas weren’t just Marvel screening rooms.

Oh yeah, have we mentioned that you remind us of the babe? Because you’ll probably want to get down to FACT’s re-run of Labyrinth (26 Jul), as David Bowie’s skin-tight pants and the contents of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop return to the big screen. Goblins. Jennifer Connelly. A Bog of Eternal Stench. What more could you want?