Entertainment

Catch cult classics: Back To The Moviedrome at Belfast Film Festival

Yul Bryner's robotic 'Gunslinger' in Moviedrome selection Westworld was the original Terminator
Yul Bryner's robotic 'Gunslinger' in Moviedrome selection Westworld was the original Terminator Yul Bryner's robotic 'Gunslinger' in Moviedrome selection Westworld was the original Terminator

THE mention of 'Moviedrome' is guaranteed to elicit pangs of nostalgia in film fans of a certain vintage who fondly remember the BBC's long-running late night cult movie series curated by Alex Cox and Mark Cousins.

Now, the Belfast Film Festival is delving into Moviedrome's vault of classics and oddities for its upcoming Back To The Moviedrome series of weekly screenings at the Beanbag Cinema, featuring one film from each of Moviedrome's 12 seasons.

Best of all, some of the featured selections will be prefaced by their original Moviedrome introductions from Cox and Cousins.

It kicks off on Thursday May 25 with a pick from 1988's debut series, Diva, Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1982 neo-thriller about a music-obsessed Parisian postman who inadvertently gets entangled with gangsters.

Thursday June 1 brings Roger Corman's crazed 1963 sci-fi picture X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes, to the Beanbag screen, followed by Carnival of Souls – Herk Harvey's eerie 1962 B-movie about a church organist whose life takes a turn for the creepily bizarre in the wake of a car accident – on June 8 and John Huston's 1979 southern gothic masterpiece Wise Blood on June 15.

Future Back To The Moviedrome selections include recently televisualised 'killer robot cowboy' classic Westworld, Sam Pekinpah's violent road movie Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, Nic Roeg's surreal Australia-set drama Walkabout, the 1978 version of Invasion of The Bodysnatchers and Moviedrome man Alex Cox's 1991 police flick El Patruellero (Highway Patrolman).

A fine celebration of this hugely influential film series.

:: Tickets and full information on all screenings available via Belfastfilmfestival.org