OCTOBER 2012! HALLOWEEN HORROR UPDATE!

Ah, Halloween, you nasty character indeed! How you are adored by the Cinegeek. How you remind us in your greatest cinematic iterations of the worst cowerings of our childhoods, indeed of even the childhood of human civilization, littered about a campfire captivated and traumatized simultaneously by the doings and wrongdoings of any era's particular boogeyman, whose ability to poke at our worst fears was ultimately the job of the chronicler of said ghastly grostesque. The tribal warrer against evil spirits becomes the campfire ghost story recounter becomes Romero and Hooper and Carpenter, and the same single cathartic purpose is still served to the community. That was the boogeyman, wasn't it? As a matter of fact, yes, it was.

Entertainment in general is a seasonal proposition. Hollywood is no different. No film is greenlit without a time of year in mind. Summer films are markedly different form winter films, and now the niches have grown so deep that early March movies bear a decidely different veneer from late March releases. Such is the nature of the beast. True to this day though, there are but two specific holidays that generate their own distinct sub-genre of film, one dark and dreadful and confirming of our worst fears concerning ourselves and the very nature of existence, and the other following shortly on its heels that provides mirth and comfort and spirit and the hopes that a better everything lies before us indeed. These holidays representing the day of the dead and the pagan rebirth are not American inventions, but Hollywood's reassessment and repurposing have come to now define them for the world at large. October 31st and December 25th. What benefit of chance that they should orbit each other so closely, and that we should get to choose which is Earth and which Moon. For the moment, being October, I will choose the more ominuous of the two as greater celestial body, and focus on the malevolent forces storming off the big screen as the month draws to a close. In simpler terms, it's almost Halloween, Suckahz! Get yer fright on!

And what great fright we have in store as well! Let's start with Universal's decision to re-release to the first run screen not just the horror flick that rejuvenated the studio's fortunes during the depression and set forth the path for its horror film cycle of the 30's, for which it is justly lauded, but to pair it with its sequel, which is inarguably the better of the two and perhaps the greatest Frankenstein film ever made. FRANKENSTEIN/BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN screens this Wednesday at participating AMC and REGAL theaters. Click the link for info.

Michael Myers, the living embodiment of the holiday, makes a return to the big screen after almost 35 years consigned to VHS and laserdisc and DVD. JOHN CARPENTER'S HALLOWEEN screens on the 25th and the 30th at the AMC Empire 25 and the Clearview Chelsea Cinema respectively. New clean 35mm prints of a horror masterpiece, I guarantee you will have never experienced this film with such white knucle terror unless you catch these screenings.

Also at the Clearview Chelsea Cinema Roman Polanski's seminal, no pun intended, ROSEMARY'S BABY screens on the 25th at 7pm and 10pm. What more need be said about this flick. It gives with tha serious creeps.

Over the weekend the scare ratio ratchets up a few notches. The Landmark Jersey Loews offers a plentiful mix of bone chilling delights. William Castle's splendid Psycho rip-off HOMICIDAL screens with the creepy art-house chiller CARNIVAL OF SOULS on Friday the 26th. Saturday the 27th brings a quartet of the jeebies; MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, DRACULA, HORROR OF DRACULA & THE SENTINEL.

The newly renovated and long revered Museum of the Moving Image presents a quintet of quiver starting on Saturday with the first of its weekend Hitchcock's, THE BIRDS, screening at 4:30pm and starring Timpi Hendren. Only one of you will get that joke but there it is. And go fuck yourself sir. Later on the night of the 27th John Carpenter, who should never be left out of ANY genre conversation, is well and truly repped by perhaps his finest two hours with one of his many Howard Hawks remakes, 1982's THE THING at 7pm. Few films have striven for the heights (or depths) of horror the way this did. If you've never seen it, here's your chance to strike yerself silly with awe the way JC intended.

Sunday the 28th at MOMI offers more Hitchcock with which to begin yer day. PSYCHO was the mahstah's last important work, and would influence modern cinema like few films would. Plus it's got DON'T GO IN THE SHOWER to burn. Screens at 2pm. POLTERGEIST just reassures that clowns, scared Indian burial grounds, and real estate agents are the three most terrifying things imaginable. Screens at 4:30pm. Finally the night draws to a close with a screening of the excat reason why I will never travel through the South. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE screens at 7pm. Masterpiece. Bad travellogue.

The grindhouse-adoring Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn serves up an impressive slate of horror fare new and old, awesome and you-be-the-judge. Their midnight fare over the pre-Halloween weekend consists of tried and true tropes THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and NOSFERATU, but also includes, in perfectly suitable fashion considering the holiday at hand, the orphan of orphans HALLOWEEN III. Only pure 80's horror fans/archivists/masochists would schedule this perturbed but glorious mess, but only they would also acknowledge that this film roots itself firmly in Serling and Kneale in its commentary both harsh and commercially adjustable to the I-Want-Everything decade. An underloved pisser. Bravo, gents!

Noon at the Nitehawk this weekend brings the restored print of ISLAND OF LOST SOULS. As close to a nightmare as the Universal backlot ever got in the 30's. You will also witness what I argue to be Charles Laughton's finest 85 minutes, and I wager he'd agree with me.

The Clearview Chelsea gives with the De Palma love this Saturday night with a reminder of a career that could have been as they screen the 70's horror classic CARRIE, which is notable for many reasons, not the least being the fitrst film to prove Stephen King was a viable Hollywood commodity. I'd also mention the viabiltiy of Sissy Spacek as leading lady, but didn't Malick do that with BADLANDS? I digress.

Finally the day itself. October 31st. Halloween. And the slate for the day might be slim but it's a keeper. None other than the Film Forum itself kicks off a week-long run of the batshit creepfest REPULSION from Roman Polanski. This flick resides within a small niche genre, the self-devouring paranoia procedural, but it remains its textbook, influencing everything from Abel Ferrara's MS. 45 to the Coen's BARTON FINK. It also remains one of the most grueliing viewing experiences for audiences of any era. Not for the faint.

Antholgy Film Archives screens Edgar G. Ulmer's basement-budget proto-noir horror extravaganza THE BLACK CAT. And if you've never seen this film you've got a golden opportunity to witness a minor and very influential classic on the big screen. Where else will you ever witness Bela Lugosi playing good guy to Boris Karloff's sadistic cult leader villain?

The cinemaic festivities conclude this glorious All Hallows Eve with an encore screening from the Nitehawk Cinema of perhaps the most celebrated vampire film in history, F.W.Murnau's NOSFERATU. Live music by Morricone Youth. Max Schreck in attendance. Not by invite.

So in the venerable words of Count Floyd, isn't thtis scaaaaaaaaary, boys and girls?

Actually, yeah. Fuck yeah! Yeah it is! Everything from silent horror to the Universal cycle to Hammer to Polanski to the really disturbing shit from the 70's, am I scared? You betchya. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Ketchya on the other side of Hallowen, Knucklehedz. Join the Facebook group! Follow me on Twitter! Spread tha woid! Excelsior, bitchaz!

-Joe Walsh