Black Sunday 5

Special Event: Miracle Mile 30th Anniversary screening

June 8th 2019, Rex Cinema, Wilmslow

Well, completely out of the blue I get an email from the original Black Sunday organiser Dave Bryan to let me know that he is running one last event, a screening of the classic Miracle Mile with a Q&A by director Steve De Jarnatt, which was originally shown at Black Sunday 3 back in June 1990.

It's showing on Saturday June 8th 2019 at 22:30 at the Rex Cinema in Wilmslow. Think there might also be a meetup at a local pub beforehand too. Sadly I don't think I will be able to attend as it's just that bit too far away and money is a bit tight, but that doesn't mean that anyone else a bit closer to the Manchester area can pop along to see this hidden gem of late 80s cinema on the big screen with an audience. And if you don't know anything about it, all the better; Go in knowing nothing (or as little as posible) and you'll be rewarded even more!

Details can be found from The Rex Cinema or EventBrite or even the Black Sunday facebook page (I don't do Facebook which probably explains why I didn't know about this earlier)

Arthur's Review of Black Sunday 5

After an absence of 5 months, Black Sunday was back again for part 5 and, after the excellent line up of the last festival, so were Arthur and Mr E. Once more Mr E's generous parents provided weekend accommodation and a personnal chauffeur service to and from the venue (in a nice Jag with leather seats as well).

The format was the same as normal (why change it if works?) and Arthur took his usual spot on the balcony for another night of 10 films (he only bought a program on this occasion, which has been scanned in below). As the evening progressed it became clear that the line up wasn't as good as previous festivals but that didn't necessarily matter as a bad film could still be fun and the constant heckling certainly helped keep everyone awake. But that's not to say that some of the films weren't worth seeing.

The opening film, Grim Prairie Tales, was quite enjoyable even if it was a slightly sub standard Creepshow rip off, featuring 3 short stories as told by 3 cowboy-style travellers sat round a camp fire. The Vanishing, although very slow and quite hard going to watch (especially when reading subtitles in the small hours of the morning) had a gripping climax that left everyone feeling a bit shaken (this was the original Dutch film and not the American remake with its cop out ending).

Opera was the highlight of the evening. It's not often you get to see a Dario Argento film on the big screen in all its uncut glory. The slow motion scene with the bullet spiralling through the spy hole in the door, through the eye of the woman looking into the spy hole and out the back of her head and finally striking her telephone at the end of the hall was truly magnificent.

Films such as Toxic Avenger 3, Def by Temptation and Nightwish all fitted into the "enjoyable trash" category and Mortal Passions was so appallingly bad the entire audience laughed at it for pretty much the whole film (The film starred Zach Galligan who was famous for being the main character in Gremlins and was about next door neighbours having affairs and killing each other to hide their illicit secret romances).

More mainstream films were represented by Desperate hours (a kidnap themed drama film starring Anthony Hopkins and Mickey Rourke) and Predator 2, which was the closing film of the night and rather unsurprisingly, went down rather well. Again Arthur is sure there was one more film in the line up and a recent email from Steve H suggested it was Pacific Heights (with Melanie Grifith and Michael Keaton). Neither Arthur nor Mr E remember it being this but in the absence of anything better, it's worth mentioning in case it helps jog the memory of someone else.