October 26th 2012! Lincoln Center Scare Tactics and My Pick Of The Day!

First a late beaking Halloween Horror addition! The Film Society of Lincoln Center, known for having its act firmly together, has announced just in time to potentially miss every screening its Fright Flick sked for the holiday! This Saturday the 27th of October FSLC offers THE NIGHT OF THE DEVILS at 6pm, and at triple the time tells the same story Mario Bava covered in 35 minutes a decade earlier in BLACK SABBATH. Nothing wrong with being a little late to the party, sez moi.

Lincoln Center's horror fare on the 28th steps up a notch. Richard Matheson's seminal I AM LEGEND has been filmed many times, and mostly awfully. Check out the Will Smith iteration should you have doubts about my assessment. The one time they got it close to perfect was the early 60's low budget Italian version starring a Vincent Price who thankfully knew to dial it down for once. LAST MAN ON EARTH, screening at 2pm, is creepy, atmospheric and well paced. It may be the only time the adapters retained the pulp roots of the source material and still delivered a compelling melodrama to match the creepy. I hope the print at the Francesca Beale Theater is superior grade. This one's a treat!

Adding to the lurid Lincoln Center festivities that fall within this site's criteria is John Schlesinger's kooky crime procedural-cult expose THE BELIEVERS, a neat little slice of fist-chew from a rudderless 80's Hollywood. Martin Sheen avoids any real heart trouble investigating a Santeria cult that may be targeting his son. Jimmy Smits makes an early appearance as Jimmy Smits. Hilarity ensues. Screens at 4pm. Yer welcome.

Wes Craven's DEADLY BLESSING continues to provide royalty paychecks to Michael Berryman. Unless he's dead. Wait now I have to check that on my phone app. In the meantime it caps off LCFS's horror fest. Screens Sunday the 28th at 6:30pm. Boo.

Now on to things of greater import.

My Pick Of The Day is a film that has haunted me in more than one way since I first learned of its existence, up to my first viewing, stealing fire from the gods on a 3am channel 9 broadcast, to the present moment as I continually try to assess its net worth to a world of film horror that has grown both large and small and ever more lucrative in the process, but less creative as well. Herk Harvey was the proto-Romero, churning out industrial films in the early 60's while yearning for something with deeper meaning and greater rewards artistic and commercial. He claimed later that he was seeking to create a film with the "look of a Bergman and the feel of a Cocteau". Which sounds like total revisionist bullshit but remains the actual truth. CARNIVAL OF SOULS, screening tonight at the Landmark Jersey Lowes (just a short PATH ride from the city, you lazy jackasses!), may not be the scariest of films, although it provides a few jolts, but it holds a secure spot on the mantle as one of the creepiest, and indeed you'll carry this movie with you for days after. Maybe longer. The Landmark Jersey Loews is one of the few remaining functioning movie palaces in the country, so seeing this wonderfully crafted macabre on its 50ft screen may well be the event of this Halloween season.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS screens tonight with William Castle's HOMICIDAL starting at 8pm at the Landmark Jersey Loews. The PATH train drops ya just outside the theater marquee. Tix are 10 bucks fer two flicks. Why the Hell aren't you going?

For the remainder of this great month's sked cklick the calendar up top! Join The Facebook group! Follow me on Twitter! Gives wit da feedback ya sons of bitches! And spread tha woid! Smooch!

-Joe Walsh