The Screen Scene: Halloween

October 27

Night Tide at the Victoria Theatre: 7:30pm

The long dark weekend starts Wednesday night with S. F. Cinematheque's screening of Curtis Harrington's 1961 feature debut Night Tide, the first star-turn by recent departee Dennis Hopper, whose uncharacteristically internalized performance has a quiet power, perhaps situated in his troubled brow and penetrating gaze. Budget-befittingly the film avoids explicit horror in favor of the atmospheric and the elegiac, thus allowing it to take an ambiguous stance regarding its supernatural elements, which derive from legends of the seas and the skies, those oh-so-real domains on which we project the unknown. Harrington, an associate and collaborator of Kenneth Anger's, shared the latter's fascination with occult themes, as is evident in Night Tide. A tarot scene, for example, has a surprisingly serious air about it, preventing us from immediately reading it as a sham. Yet, placed within its carnivalesque setting, are we to regard it as just another freak show?

Dennis Hopper in the siren's thrall

Night Tide itself would have been condemned to the domain of unknown cinema but for a recent intervention by the Academy Film Archive. You'll see in this preservation that at times the image, culled from elements warped and on the brink of deterioration, loses its focus piecemeal. On the whole though, it's a handsome print and a miraculous rescue.

The Shining at the Alameda Theatre: 1:45pm, 4:30pm, 7:20pm (also the next day)

Stephen King's profuse scribblings have inspired vast numbers of schlocky movie adaptations. It takes a director of De Palma's or, in this case, Kubrick's stature to make something worthwhile of them. This is not one of my favorite Kubrick films, but like all of them, it benefits enormously from a proper big-screen film presentation (cf. the opening helicopter-shot sequence). Kubrick has an absolute ball exploring the corridors and grounds of the infamous Overlook Hotel and puts these settings to wonderful use. Meanwhile, he confirms his mastery of shot/reverse shot, imbuing long dialogue scenes with unaccountable dread.
Disclaimer: I've never read Stephen King.

October 28

Double Feature: Season of the Witch and Suspiria at SFMoMA: 7pm

I've not seen George Romero's third film Season of the Witch (aka Hungry Wives), but as it's situated between the two early-career masterpieces of his I have seen, Night of the Living Dead (whose first two sequels are all but impossible to see on film) and Martin, I couldn't be more curious. These are, respectively, a zombie movie about repressed social tensions and a vampire movie about loneliness. Following in this tradition, apparently SotW is a witch movie with feminist subtexts. Regrettably, this seems to be a cut overseas version of the film missing 45 minutes or so, if one can trust imdb's runtimes.

Jessica Harper in Suspiria

Don't get hung up on the clumsy dubbing in Dario Argento's masterpiece of baroque creepiness, Suspiria. The at times somewhat difficult to follow story isn't helped by the censor cuts marring the prints I've seen, but the film is a triumph of mood over narrative. From start to finish it's an orgy of art-nouveau production design with hints of M. C. Escher, expressionistically lit and printed in saturated Technicolor. Argento's camera loves the gore typical of the Italian gross-out horror genre with which Suspiria flirts, but it also delights in the overall kinetics of scene staging, turning the otherwise arguably pedestrian plot into a grisly Ballett des Grauens. The setting is a dance school in Germany, whither cult actress Jessica Harper arrives on a clichéd dark and stormy night to perfect her steps. (As in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, the unostentatiously pretty Harper, in seeming defiance of her ungainly bearing, proves a game hoofer.) From the first bravura scene Suspiria establishes itself as pure, high-caliber supernatural/slasher horror, with the persistent, driving synth-prog musical motifs of Goblin's legendary score throughout suggesting the tortured wailing of lost souls.

October 29

Dracula at the Paramount: 8pm

Tod Browning's definitive American rendering of Bram Stoker's tale takes flak in some circles for its minimalist use of sound (even having suffered the indignity of misguided re-scorings in recent times). I've felt this to be a great strength, allowing its stately images to speak their menace unencumbered, as well as reflecting the technical realities and not-yet-codified possibilities of the early sound era. (And let's be honest: Browning was really a silent director and even his fifth soundie, the notorious Freaks, tends to come to a grinding halt whenever the characters open their mouths.) This may be the perfect film to see at the Paramount, with its far-too-live-for-cinema acoustics. Oh, and I shouldn't have to mention it, but Bela Lugosi's performance is totally iconic!

And Elliot Lavine is back for a Halloween curatorial stint at his old haunt...

The Man from Planet X at the Roxie: 6:35pm, 9:30pm

More sci-fi than horror, this 1951 effort from lo-budge auteur Edgar G. Ulmer has many of the trappings of films of that genre from this period that leave them susceptible to criticisms of datedness and cheesiness. How could it not be so? But this lesser-known gem bears some thematic similarity to the better-known and highly-regarded The Day the Earth Stood Still, from the same year.

The Creature with the Atom Brain at the Roxie: 8pm

I haven't seen this and rather suspect it might be a bit schlocky, but it contains both Nazis and zombies and that adds up to fabulous.

October 30

Poltergeist at the Castro: noon, 9pm

Shockingly, I've never seen this one either, but I've heard from some sources it's not to be missed, so I won't (miss it). Star JoBeth Williams will be in attendance and the subject of much hullaballoo courtesy of Marc Huestis, particularly at the late show.
STOP PRESS: I've just been informed that due to damage to the only available Poltergeist print a blu-ray will be substituted for these shows.

Corruption at the Roxie: 2:30pm, 6:15pm, 9:45pm

I'm a sucker for classic British horror in the Hammer Films vein, and this take on Les yeux sans visage would appear to fit into that tradition, even starring Hammer mainstay Peter Cushing. This film comes at that awkward stage of the genre's development when things got a bit more explicitly bawdy, so depending on the cut of the film, we might be treated to some naughty bits.

The Brood: What the hell?!

The Brood at the Roxie: 4:15pm, 8pm

Ooh... an early Cronenberg I haven't seen! It looks like he's well into his gross body-horror fixation. I'm there!

Cineséance: A Multi-Sensory Experiment in Terror! at Oddball Films: 8pm

This program of shorts over at Oddball is curated by my buddy Michael Campos-Quinn, an exponent of synesthetic expanded-cinema type happenings. Thus, audience members can expect to participate in a séance "to raise films from the dead that will titillate from the seventh dimension", including Kenneth Anger's Invocation of My Demon Brother and other occult and sexy classics and non-classics.

The Magician at Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum: 7:30pm

Paul Wegener plays a mad doctor inspired by Alastair Crowley who needs the blood of a virgin for his Frankenstein-like experiments. Sounds enticing, no? The talented if repetitive Jon Mirsalis will rock the Kurzweil during this and a selection of spooky silent shorts.

The War of the Gargantuas at ATA: 8:30pm

Hairy humanoids!

This Ishiro Honda pic features "two hairy humanoids spawned from Frankenstein's monster", providing further evidence that Mary Shelley's classic novel is a well of inspiration that will never run dry. Craig Baldwin's Other Cinema is running this as part of a Honda tribute.

October 31--Halloween!

Something Wicked This Way Comes at the Castro: 2:30pm

Jesse Ficks and his Matinees for Maniacs is behind this double feature. SWTWC concerns some sort of crazy circus that wreaks havoc in a small town, based on Ray Bradbury. Hey, I haven't seen it, but some guy on imdb seems to like it.

Escape to Witch Mountain at the Castro: 4:30pm

...rounding out the double feature. Look, I'm running out of steam here. I haven't seen it. All I can say is there was a recent sequel starring The Rock Dwayne Johnson. What else are you going to do Halloween afternoon? Jeez.

Swamp Thing at the PFA: 7:30pm

This early Wes Craven effort features a mad scientist who gets a taste of his own medicine, turning him into a vengeful vegetable--reminiscent perhaps of the classic Dr. Who story The Seeds of Doom. Instead of Elisabeth Sladen we're treated to buxom Adrienne Barbeau tramping through the swamp. A fair trade-off? Find out for yourself!

Planet Terror at the Red Vic: 2:00pm, 4:15pm, 7:15pm, 9:15pm (also evening shows the next day)

This is the first half of the much-maligned Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino retro-fetishist collaboration Grindhouse. I'd say it's unfairly maligned due to QT's delightful Death Proof. Unfortunately Rodriguez's segment is a big turd, shot on video and all-around anachronistic. Skip this one but try and see as many as you can of the other films here listed. Good luck!