If you didn’t know it was Halloween from the foliage, the pumpkins, and all that fake cobweb stuff that has turned the entire country into a veritable haunted house, a casual stroll past the marquees of most movie theaters in NYC this weekend will make that screamingly clear. It seems like just about everyone is getting in on the act, making for an enticing, but overwhelming, stack of choices:
The House of the Devil at Angelika — Who would have thought that the scariest option of all this weekend would actually be a new release? Though it sure doesn’t feel like it. Ti West’s masterfully wrought and flawlessly recreated 1980s nightmare is not just an exemplary exercise in throwback horror. It’s one of the best movies of the year. Read my conversation with West and do yourself a favor: GO SEE The House of the Devil!!!
Freaky Cats at BAM — Leave it to Jake Perlin to program the most batshit crazy double-bill of the weekend. We all know cats are freaky, but after experiencing the one-two punch of Sleepwalkers (Friday, 10/30) and Hausu (Saturday, 10/31), you might be afraid to go back home and sleep in the same apartment as yours. I am popping my Hausu cherry with friends at the 2pm screening Saturday and am shooting for the 6:50 Sleepwalkers on Friday. Glad that our cat-sitting assignment ended a few months ago.
Fright Night VHS Double-Feature at 92YTribeca — The latest installment in the partnership between NotComing.com and the folks at 92YTribeca features two forgotten 1986 slasher flicks: Killer Workout and Chopping Mall. I know that I’ve seen both of these movies, back when I had a major horror fetish, but I have absolutely no recollection of them. As if you couldn’t gather from the titles, there will probably be more laughs than scares at 92YTribeca on Saturday night.
Roger Corman: Poe and Beyond! at Anthology Film Archives — This series, which runs from 10/28 through 11/9, features seven of Corman’s early 1960s Poe adaptations, as well as many other selections from his ridiculously mountainous oeuvre: Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tomb of Ligeia, House of Usher, The Wild Angels, A Bucket of Blood, Bloody Mama, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Intruder, X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. If you commit to this from top-to-bottom, you might not be having time for anything else for the next week and a half.
Halloween Week Gruesome Twosome! at Film Forum — The Film Forum’s contribution to the cause is a two-for-the-price-of-one pairing of Douglas Hickox’s Theater of Blood (1973) and Seth Holt’s Scream of Fear! (1961).
New/Old Forms of Terror at IFC Center — Lars von Trier’s loony Antichrist would make for a pretty hilarious lead-in to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (Friday and Saturday at 11:45pm). If I were a braver (or is that stupider?) man, I would seriously contemplate taking this cinemasochistic plunge.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors at the Sunshine — My connection to this series was buried a long time ago, but I seem to remember thinking at the time that, at least when it came to the first four installments, the odd numbers were good and the even numbers were not-so-good. One of these days I will revisit them all and see if I have the same reaction.
I’m sure there is more spooky cinema for the taking, but this is a daunting enough list. Happy Halloween, everyone!
— Michael Tully
