Leeds Film Festival 1989

Arthur's Review of Leeds Film Festival 1989

Technically this was Arthur's first introduction to late night/all night films but it was pretty tame compared to what was to come. The Leeds film festival is an annual event and mutliple films are shown across a number of weeks. Arthur isn't going to attempt to write up the full list of films for each festival over the years but as this was Arthur's first festival and it included a couple of horror double/triple bill screenings, he is going to make an exception just for these films.

Shortly after Arthur started his first year at university in Leeds, the line up for the festival was announced. It included a season on the films of George Romero including a late night double bill of The Crazies and Creepshow and, a few nights later, a triple bill of his Dead trilogy (this was long before Land of the Dead was made and a few years before the Night of the Living dead remake).

Arthur bought tickets and attended both these. The films were shown at The Hyde Park Picture House, a fantastic old cinema right in the middle of student land in Leeds. It has a balcony, stalls, a cinema organ and even features gas lighting! Arthur would spend many, many hours at this cinema over the next few years. Athur had already seen Creephsow on video but the Crazies was new to him. It was an enjoyable film about the release of a military nerve gas that turns ordinary people into psychotic killers.

The screening of the Dead trilogy was also great to see on the big screen, although Dawn of the Dead was the censored video version and Day of the Dead may also have been cut as well (it is a bit harder to remember as Day only suffered a few minor cuts of finger biting and alike.)

Several years later the Leeds film festival held another George Romero season but this time did things properly and got the man himself to attend and introduce his films.