FrightFest 2024 ODEON LEICESTER SQUARE Screen 4
FILM PROGRAMME
ODEON LEICESTER SQUARE Screen 4 (40 capacity)
Discovery Screen 3
FRIDAY 23 AUGUST 2024
6.30pm THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT (UK Premiere)
Director: Michael Felker. With: Adam David Thompson, Riley Dandy, Justin Benson, Sarah Bolger. USA 2024. 102 mins.
When estranged siblings, Joseph and Sidney, rendezvous at a local diner after a close-call robbery, they hightail it to an abandoned farmhouse that transports them to a different time in order to escape the local cops. But when they try to return to their present after the coast is clear, an unknown metaphysical force cuts them off and maroons them on the land unless they do exactly what they’re told. What comes from this not only bends the forces of spacetime but also bends Joe and Sid’s familial bonds beyond the point of trust and forgiveness.
9.15pm THE LAST PODCAST (World Premiere)
Director: Dean Alioto. With: David Foley, Charlie Saxton, Mick Garris, Gabriel Rush. USA 2024. 98 mins.
There are half a billion podcast listeners worldwide. This year there will be 5 million new podcast hosts. Charlie Bailey is one of them whose podcast ‘ParaNormalcy’ takes the mickey out of those who believe in ghosts. His girlfriend Brie wishes he wasn’t so mean-spirited about debunking spirits, but Charlie’s humorous sardonic style is what his burgeoning audience loves. All this changes when Charlie is contacted by a junior professor at Pasadena-Tech University. Duncan claims he can scientifically prove there’s no afterlife so Charlie rushes to interview him. But Duncan’s fiancé was recently murdered and he has a gun…
SATURDAY 24 AUGUST 2024
12.55pm FROM DARKNESS (UK Premiere)
Director: Philip Da Silva. With: Oscar Skagerberg, Rakel Benér Gajdusek, Peter Mörlin, Lars Adsten. Sweden 2024. 95 mins.
Park ranger Angelica seeks the help of her former dog-handler boyfriend Viktor to search for a missing woman in a dangerous Swedish nature reserve, complicated by a disturbing myth about the Cave Banshee, a vengeful spirit from Nordic folklore that once lured miners to their deaths in the treacherous caves. As they delve deeper into the forest, Viktor starts to question his own sanity and whether the rumoured Banshee is more than just a myth. To make matters worse, Angelica and Viktor share a painful history with the haunted place, one they must confront to unravel the reserve’s many mysteries.
3.30pm RETROSPECTIVE: MERMAID LEGEND (UK Premiere)
Director: Toshiharu Ikeda. With: Mari Shirato , Kentarô Shimizu, Jun Etô, Seiji Miyaguchi. Japan 1984. 110 mins.
It’s the 40th Anniversary of a rare exploitation cult movie that has never played any film festival outside of its native Japan or ever released in any format internationally. From the late Toshiharu Ikeda, director of EVIL DEAD TRAP (1988,) comes a tale of powerful vengeance. When a fisherman is killed by greedy land developers for standing in the way of their expansion plans, his pearl-diver wife Migiwa moves into unforgiving and vindictive payback on those yakuza responsible. Framed for her husband’s murder and forced to shelter in a brothel, hell hath no fury as the bloody battles begin.
6.25pm A SAMURAI IN TIME (European Premiere)
Director: Junichi Yasuda. With: Makiya Yamaguchi, Norimasa Fuke, Yuno Sakura, Rantaro Mine. Japan 2024. 131 mins.
During the Edo period in Kyoto, a samurai prepares to fight a ronin, when a flash of lightning hits him. Waking up he learns he’s been transported through time to the present day and the duel location is now a film set for ‘jidaigeki’ TV shows and movies. Still in his samurai clothes, he’s mistaken for an extra and immediately thrust into the world of movie production. Due to his ‘authentic’ look and language, he’s employed on many shows and soon plays the role of a ‘kiraeyaku’, a swordsman whose job is to spectacularly, and continuously, die on screen.
SUNDAY 25 AUGUST 2024
1.00pm A SAMURAI IN TIME
4.00pm RETROSPECTIVE: MERMAID LEGEND
6.40pm FROM DARKNESS
MONDAY 26 AUGUST 2024
3.45pm THE LAST PODCAST
6.30pm THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT