ORMEAU Community Cinema will stage their Irish horror film festival Paranormeau Activity in various venues around Belfast's Ormeau Road this week.
The groansomely named festival will get underway tonight with a screening of Belfast-born director John Wright's Ireland-set monster flick Grabbers at The Pavilion bar and includes a 'secret' film at a secret location to be disclosed just 24-hours before the screening.
Tomorrow evening, Irish writer and director Katie Dolan's award-winning feature debut You Are Not My Mother will be screened at the former Rosetta Masonic Lodge. The psychological drama, depicts a dysfunctional family life while exploring mental illness and the myth of changeling.
Showing at Gasworks restaurant on Sunday October 30, The Devil's Doorway from Belfast-based writer and director Aislinn Clarke, the first Irish female to write and direct a feature horror, is also part of the Paranormeau Activity programme. Entirely shot in Northern Ireland, this creepy 'found footage' film is set in 1960 and centres on a pair of priests dispatched to a Magdalene laundry in order to authenticate a series of potentially miraculous occurrences.
In addition to these homegrown films, the festival will also show Iranian director Ana Lily Amirpour's acclaimed vampire feature A Girl Walks Home at Night on Saturday October 29 at the former Rosetta Masonic Lodge and Tim Burton's family-friendly animated frightener, Frankeweenie.
The latter will be screened on Halloween afternoon at Ballynafeigh Methodist Church, followed by a fancy dress parade with storytelling and dancing.
"We're really excited to be screening such a good mix of horror in the lead up to Halloween," says festival director Corey McKinney.
"As a small group of volunteers, we wanted to show something a bit different. I think our programme has something for everyone – from the rural comedy horror of Grabbers, to the urban supernatural scares of You Are Not My Mother and the modern animated classic Frankenweenie.
"Most of our films are by Irish writers and directors as we wanted to showcase the talent from closer to home, and we hope one or two of the actors or film-makers might even make an appearance.
"We're a non-profit volunteer-led community group. We know times are tough so we're offering free tickets to anyone who would like to come to one of our events but is struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. You can send an email to arrange."
:: For full programme details, visit Ormeau Community Cinema at FB.com/OrmeauCommunityCinema and @ormeaucinema on Instagram for more information and eventbrite.co.uk for tickets.
