Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 263: Sat Sep 23

Manhunter (Mann, 1986): Cinema Museum, 6.35pm


The Celluloid Sorceress proudly presents her first all-day event at the Cinema Museum. All the films are screened from 35mm, all are rare prints and all are cult films. Manhunter is the standout here but there are plenty of excellent movies on offer.
Doors 11am for 11:30am start.
  • 11.30 Innocent Blood (1992, 113 mins, Cert 15)
  • 13.45 Trick or Treat (1986, 98 mins, Cert 18)
  • 16.25 The Last Starfighter (1984, 101 mins, Cert PG)
  • 18.35 Manhunter (1986, 119 mins, Cert 18)
  • 20.55 Razorback (1984, 95 mins, Cert 18)

Time Out review:
Michael Mann hits top form with this splendidly stylish and oppressive thriller adapted from Thomas Harris' Red Dragon. The plot is complex and ingenious: FBI forensics expert Will Graham (William Petersen), blessed (and tormented) by an ability to fathom the workings of the criminal mind through psychic empathy, is brought back from voluntary retirement to track down a serial killer, the 'Tooth Fairy'. Focused on the anxiety and confusion of the hunter rather than his psychotic prey, the film functions both as a disturbing examination of voyeurism, and as an often almost unbearably grim suspenser. Mann creates a terrifying menacing atmosphere without resorting to graphic depiction of the seriously nasty killings: music, designer-expressionist 'Scope photography, and an imaginative use of locations, combine with shots of the aftermath of the massacres to evoke a world nightmarishly perceived by Graham's haunted sensibility. The performances, too, are superior, most memorably Cox's intellectually brilliant and malevolent asylum inmate. One of the most impressive American thrillers of the late '80s.
Geoff Andrew


Here (and above) is the trailer.

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