Save this summer! £5 kids cinema tickets during the holidays. See what’s on
Joe and Angela’s marriage is hanging by a thread. When they invite their mysterious upstairs neighbours round for dinner, what starts as an awkward evening soon takes some surprising turns. Could this unusual night bring them closer together – or push everything past breaking point?
Olivia Wilde’s latest film is sharp, funny and packed with tension. Blending uncomfortable laughs with plenty of relationship drama, it’s a witty and compelling watch that keeps you guessing right to the end.
Telling the truth isn’t always that simple. Alice, a brilliant novelist, despises the carefully constructed lies of modern society. But the more she challenges those around her, the fiercer the backlash becomes. Soon, she must confront the price of speaking her truth in a world that would rather silence her.
Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Indhu Rubasingham directs Martin Crimp’s (Cyrano de Bergerac) highly anticipated play.
Winner of 3 Olivier Awards® including Best Play and a Tony Award® for Best Actor in a Play (John Lithgow), the production was filmed live in London’s West End ahead of its sold-out Broadway run. The stellar cast includes Aya Cash (The Boys, The Franchise, You’re the Worst), Elliot Levey (Cold War, Patriots, Good) and Rachael Stirling (The Divine Mrs S).
A world-famous children’s author under threat. A battle of wills in the wake of scandal. And one chance to make amends…It’s the summer of 1983, The Witches is about to hit the shelves and Roald Dahl is making last-minute edits. But the outcry at his recent, explicitly antisemitic article won’t die down. Across a single afternoon at his family home, and rocked by an unexpectedly explosive confrontation, Dahl is forced to choose: make a public apology or risk his name and reputation. Inspired by real events, GIANT explores with dark humour the difference between considered opinion and dangerous rhetoric offering a complicated portrait of a fiendishly charismatic icon.
Hollywood has a monster problem…Follow the Minions in 1920s Hollywood as they aim to make a monster movie of their own and search for frightening creatures to appear in their movie. But after unleashing monsters upon an unsuspecting world, The Minions must band together to save the day.
Fresh off the worldwide blockbuster success of summer 2024’s funniest comedy, Despicable Me 4, Illumination expands its joyful animated universe with a riotous new chapter, featuring all-new characters, in the biggest global animated franchise in history: Minions & Monsters.
This is the rambunctious, ridiculous and totally true story of how the Minions conquered Hollywood, became movie stars, lost everything, unleashed monsters onto the world and then banded together to try and save the planet from the mayhem they had just created.
From 24 July – 31 August, tickets for Under 16s are just £5 each!
1991 | 100m | USA | (18) | 1.85:1 | Dolby Stereo
“My name is Fool, what’s yours?”
Wes Craven’s darkly comic urban nightmare follows Fool, a young boy who breaks into the fortified home of his ruthless landlords only to discover a labyrinth of secrets beneath the floorboards. What begins as a simple heist, spirals into a claustrophobic battle for survival as Fool confronts the deranged couple who rule the house — and the feral, long‑imprisoned souls hidden in the walls. Shot with Craven’s signature blend of social satire and genre mayhem, the film turns a decaying Los Angeles mansion into a living organism of paranoia, cruelty, and rebellion, making it a perfect fit for the penultimate GRINDFEST slot.
The DITG team are thrilled to screen this from an original 35mm print!
1989 | 90m | USA | (18) | 1.85:1 | Dolby Stereo
“Only love and music are forever”
Diverging from the romantic grandeur of the stage musical, Dwight H. Little’s 1989 adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera reinvents the Gaston Leroux classic as a visceral, time-shifting gothic slasher.
Starring horror icon Robert Englund as Erik Destler, a disfigured composer who sells his soul to the devil so his music will be immortal—at the price of a face he must “stitch” together with the skin of his victims. When modern-day Juilliard student Christine Day (Jill Schoelen) unearths his lost score, a mysterious accident transports her back to 19th-century London, where she becomes the muse and prisoner of the murderous maestro. Featuring early appearances by Bill Nighy and Molly Shannon, this rare 35mm screening highlights the film’s sumptuous, Hammer-homage palette and its gruesome, practical makeup effects by Kevin Yagher.
1973 | 90m | UK | (15) | 1.85:1 | Mono
“What religion can they possibly be learning jumping over bonfires?”
GRINDFEST 2026 concludes with Robin Hardy’s all time classic folk horror, THE WICKER MAN. Few films have grown in stature as dramatically, a work once dismissed as an oddity and now revered as a cornerstone of British folk horror. Robin Hardy’s 1973 masterpiece unfolds with a slow, sunlit unease, drawing its power not from shadows but from the bright, disquieting normality of Summer isle — a place where ancient rituals thrive in plain sight and the modern world feels strangely out of place.
Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward), a devout Christian policeman who arrives on the remote island to investigate a missing girl. What he encounters instead is a community bound by pagan traditions, erotic energy, and a worldview that challenges every certainty he carries with him. As Howie’s search deepens, the islanders’ songs, dances, and celebrations take on a sinister resonance, building toward one of the most unforgettable climaxes in British cinema.
Beyond its surface mystery, The Wicker Man endures because it is a film about belief: the clash between faiths, the seduction of community, and the terrifying certainty of those who think they are right. It is a story that grows richer with each viewing, revealing new layers of satire, spirituality, and psychological tension.
This 35mm screening offers a rare chance to experience The Wicker Man as audiences first did — as a folk parable, a musical, a thriller, and a cultural provocation all at once. It remains one of the most singular films ever produced in Britain, a work whose flames still burn brightly more than fifty years on.
The DITG team are thrilled to screen this from an original 35mm IB Technicolor print!
1986 | 93m | USA | (15) | 1.85:1 | Mono
“This has been one wacky night!”
Its GRINDFEST 2026! We continue our 3-day genre event with the classic and criminally underrated horror comedy, VAMP. This 1986 cult classic is a perfect cocktail of gothic glamour and ’80s attitude.
When two students venture into the city after dark to secure entertainment for their frat, they wander into a mysterious nightclub ruled by a seductive vampire queen and her undead entourage. What begins as a simple errand, spirals into a night of danger, dark humour, and unforgettable style. Prepare to step into a world where the neon glows bright and the shadows bite back.
The DITG team are thrilled to screen this from an original 35mm print!
The film will be introduced by Professor Stacey Abbott, Northumbria University.
1982 | 95m | USA | (18) | 1.85:1 | Mono
“What’s in the basket?”
Day one of GRINDFEST ’26 concludes with the perfect late-night movie, BASKET CASE!
A must-see video rental of the 1980s, Basket Case follows Duane Bradley, a shy young man who arrives in New York City carrying a locked wicker basket that hides a horrifying secret: his deformed, once conjoined twin brother Belial, who survived their separation and now communicates with him telepathically. Together, the brothers hunt down the doctors who forcibly split them apart, leaving a trail of grisly revenge through the city’s sleazy underbelly. As Duane struggles between protecting his monstrous sibling and pursuing a normal life, the film spirals into a mix of dark humour, raw practical effects, and unforgettable grindhouse energy and is one of the most outrageously bizarre, gory and insanely enjoyable horror films of its time.
The DITG team are thrilled to screen BASKET CASE from an original 35mm print!
Introduction by Dr Johnny Walker, Northumbria University.
1985 | 95m | UK | (PG) | 1.85:1 | Dolby Stereo
“When I’ve finished with the Green Baize Vampire, he’s gonna need a blood transfusion, a brain transplant and a set of National Health railings”
A film so defiantly strange it feels like it slipped in from a parallel universe, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire stands as one of the boldest, most unclassifiable entries in British cinema. Part rock opera, part horror‑tinged sports melodrama, part social satire, it transforms the world of professional snooker into a mythic battleground where youth, class, and superstition collide under neon lights.
The story follows Billy the Kid, a brash young hustler whose rise threatens the dominance of the Green Baize Vampire — an immortal, aristocratic cue‑sport legend whose theatrical presence borders on the supernatural. Their rivalry builds toward a high‑stakes showdown staged like a ritual sacrifice, complete with pounding musical numbers, surreal choreography, and a visual palette that swings between music‑hall camp and gothic excess. But beneath the spectacle lies a sharp commentary on 1980s Britain: the old guard clinging to power, the working‑class upstart fighting for a place at the table, and a media circus eager to turn everything into a spectacle.
Long misunderstood and often dismissed on release, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire has since earned its place as a cult treasure: a musical horror western about snooker that shouldn’t work, yet somehow does so brilliantly. This 35mm screening invites audiences to rediscover — or finally discover — a film that remains as audacious, playful, and utterly singular as the day it premiered and we’re delighted to bring it to GRINDFEST.
