Eldar Shengelaia (b. 1933) was born into filmmaking. The son of silent-era Georgian film star Nato Vachnadze and Director Nikoloz Shengelaia, Eldar studied film in Moscow before returning home to Georgia to work in Tblisi’s Gruziya-film studio; one of the oldest film studios in the world. After a successful career with widespread praise for his work in the 1980s, Shengelaia paused filmmaking to pursue a second career in the Georgian parliament as part of the country’s Independence movement, where he served from 1990 until 2004. This change shines an intriguing light on the loving portrayal of his country and the critical and mocking portrayal of the Soviet occupation seen allegorically throughout his films.

Spectacle is pleased to present four of Shengelaia’s works made before the collapse of the Soviet Union that showcase his native country as he saw it. His multiple efforts to portray Georgia’s truth on film exhibit similarities in their themes: life is tough, it is a constant struggle with the people around us, and the geography in which we inhabit.

BLUE MOUNTAINS, OR UNBELIEVABLE STORY
(ცისფერი მთები ანუ დაუჯერებელი ამბავი)
Dir. Eldar Shengelaia, 1983.
Georgia. 97 min.
In Georgian with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 – 7:30PM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 – 10PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 5PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – 10PM

TICKETS

The film concerns a young writer, Soso, attempting to get his novel—the titular Blue Mountains—read by the editorial board of a state-run publishing company. His hopes are dashed in a comedy of errors as his attempts to have the manuscript reviewed are thwarted by everyone else’s preoccupations: chess games, lunches, vacation time, suspicious husbands, constant meetings, the vibrations from neighboring games of motoball (or is it the subway?), and most importantly, a painting of Greenland threatening to fall from its precarious perch.

Season’s pass as Soso’s visits to his publisher grow increasingly hectic and frustrating as he bounces from office to office, and nothing seems to progress or get done. Like the bureaucracy stifling Soso’s progress, where everyone is looking up at someone else to pass the buck to, the employees’ eyes are literally looking upward as the ceiling in the building cracks and plaster rains down upon them. Will they do anything to stop the impending doom? Or will their reliance on the system be their downfall?

The film’s popularized English title uses “unbelievable” to describe the story, whereas “improbable” or “incredible” may be a more apt translation. Considering this is Shengelaia’s last film before entering Georgian Parliament 6 years later, one can infer that his treatment by, and experience with, the bureaucracy of the Soviet film industry spurred this poison pen classic. To the members of this theater’s volunteer collective, this film will either be seen as cathartic, charming, hilarious, and be received with cheers of “preach!”; or be a trigger for the PTSD that comes with collectivism, and be seen as far too real.

THE ECCENTRICS
(შერეკილები)
Dir. Eldar Shengelaia, 1973.
Georgia. 79 min.
In Georgian with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 – 10PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 – 7:30PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 – 10PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 – 7:30PM

TICKETS

Shengelaia’s most outright comedic, surrealistic, and fantastical film of the bunch, THE ECCENTRICS tells the story of Ertaoz, a free spirited young man living in the Georgian countryside. After the death of his equally free spirited father, and left without house and home, Ertaoz wanders to the nearby city where he becomes entangled in the goings on of the local adulteress Margalita, her ever-absent train conductor husband, her jail warden boyfriend, and her psychiatrist suitor.

When an encounter with the warden and the temptation of Margalita’s seduction lands him in jail, Ertaoz meets a new paternal (uncle-grandpa?) figure and friend in the eccentric Kristephore, a mathematician and inventor kept in an underground cell. Together they hatch a plan to escape via an unlikely flying machine inspired by Ertoaz’s pet hen. Hilarity ensues. Will their machine take flight? Will they make it out alive? Will Ertaoz win the heart of Margalita in the process?

AN UNUSUAL EXHIBITION
(არაჩვეულებრივი გამოფენა)
Dir. Eldar Shengelaia, 1968.
Georgia. 89 min.
In Georgian with English subtitles.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 – 5PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 10PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 10PM

TICKETS

AN UNUSUAL EXHIBITION showcases the life and adventures of Aguli, a sculptor who, injured in the second world war, returns home to resume his artistic practice. In his studio’s courtyard stands a large piece of marble gifted to him by his former teacher. The white marble becomes the artist’s white whale. Unable to ever begin carving due to everchanging ideas, commissions for grave monuments, the war effort, a seemingly unending amount of children, and even his own drunken indiscretions. The behemoth blank page plagues the artist, who takes out his inability to spend time on his own work on his wife, who takes on all domestic responsibilities, and his father.

Shengelaia approaches the life of an artist with his usual brand of humor, satire, and sardonicism. Aguli encounters all of the naysayers a creative might deal with in their career. Finicky clients who just need to see the smallest amount of their own direction in the work, regardless of how much actually changes. Never able to create his own artistic expressions, the local graveyard becomes his exhibition where Aguli can look back on his accomplishments and past commissions. The film presents a truth for the aspirational working class creative: life gets in the way. But for Aguli, and the rest of us, perhaps it’s the art that got in the way of life.

THE WHITE CARAVAN
(თეთრი ქარავანი)
Dirs. Eldar Shengelaia, Tamaz Meliava, 1963.
Georgia. 93 min.
In Georgian with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – 5PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 – 10PM

TICKETS

THE WHITE CARAVAN follows its narrator Gela, who is the eldest son of Martia, a shepherd who leads a group of seven as they guide their flock of sheep across the challenging landscape of Georgia to their winter pasture. The flock is their village’s main economic livelihood, with the entire population relying upon its success. The work is hard and the terrain dangerous.

Gela is unhappy and despondent, feeling trapped in his life with the flock on the road. Lured by the excitement and possibilities of the city he abandons his group, his flock, and the love of his fiancee for ‘greener pastures’. But after a tragic accident brings him back, what regrets await him? Was chasing a dream a mistake? What does it mean to live?

THE WHITE CARAVAN is the 3rd feature film that Shengelaia worked on in a directorial role, sharing responsibilities with Tamaz Meliava. While it is the earliest film we are presenting in this series, in some regards it feels the grandest in scale. Walking a line between a rural slice of life, and an epic western. The film utilizes both the relationship of the father and the son, as well as the countryside and the city, to discuss Georgia’s national identity and the schism between tradition and modernity, old and new. Two sides of the same coin, one looking forward, the other looking back, unable to see one another face to face. Some New York transplants might feel this one in their bones.

Poster by John Vetter.

Poster by Connor Davenport.

Poster by Cris R Hernández.

Poster by Delaney Weber.

As the second installation of our occasional series DECADES OF DEBRIS (formerly known as BENJI’S WORLD), Spectacle is thrilled to collaborate with our longtime partners at Screen Slate to host a month-long reprisal of June’s HOT BLOODED: AN ARIZAL MARATHON, the collection of fist-and-face-blending action works helmed by the still-mysterious mononymous Indonesian director known as ARIZAL.

The original “HOT BLOODED: THE ARIZAL MARATHON” took place in August 2012, in conjunction with Spectacle’s first-and-last-ever SUMMER OF SHRAPNEL – an entire month of action cinema from around the world programmed in a doomed bid at offsetting the dog days of late summer. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the filmmaker’s untimely passing in May 2014, HOT BLOODED is back, with a few new VHS transfers.

With over 50 features and eight television series (“sinetron”) to his credit between 1974 and 2006, Arizal is is rightly described by his English Wikipedia page as “one of Indonesian most productive film director and script writer;” and yet these six films dated between 1981 and 1989 are the only ones classified as “Action” films on the IMDb (which lists one under two different titles for an incorrect total of seven movies). If Arizal is an obscure figure outside North America, it’s not difficult to imagine why—each of these features individually puts the entire western action film canon to shame. Suppression is an obvious motive.

Arizal is, if nothing else, the Monet of cars spewing fire from their trunks barrelling nose-first, upside-down into other exploding vehicles while Anglo heroes arc through the flames like star-spangled ropes of jism spewing bullets from a musclebike. The kind of artist who suicide-launches a flaming oil tanker into the helicopter of logic and reason, Arizal is on a sobering quest to unabashedly deliver every dashed promise all other action filmmakers have made. He is a steel-toothed, Rube Goldbergian idea factory of prurient bloodlust, pyromania and righteous acrobatic vengeance. If 10-year-old boys’ lewdest fantasies didn’t already exist, Arizal would have invented them.

EACH OF THESE FILMS stars a uniquely charismatic Anglo leading male, none of whom anyone would have ever heard of if AMERICAN HUNTER’s Christopher Mitchum had not run unsuccessfully for California’s 24 congressional district house seat back in 2012. And yet with the exception of THE STABILIZER, and just months ago SPECIAL SILENCERS, none of these films are available for retail in North America, and scantly available via private file sharing networks; when we last hosted this retrospective they could only be seen through carefully circulated choice bootleg distribution of decades-old Dutch, Greek and Japanese VHS releases.

Thanks to Screen Slate, Spectacle has obtained the highest quality sources available, and we take great pride in having procured all works with their original English dubbing.

TO BURN THE SUN
(MEMBAKAR MATAHARI)
dir. Arizal, 1981.
Indonesia. 90 min.
In dubbed English.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 24 – MIDNIGHT

GET YOUR TICKETS!

The first of over a dozen collaborations between Dutch-Indonesian martial arts star Barry Prima (THE WARRIOR) and the lovely Eva Arnaz (THE WARRIOR), TO BURN THE SUN is the most hand-to-hand-combat intensive film in the Arizal canon. Arnaz is the film’s true protagonist—a young woman whose village was raided by bandits that stole her innocence and slaughtered her family. She was forced into a life of prostitution in capital city Jarkata, which is where Prima spies her escorting a customer in a night club. The two had been lovers once, and with this chance meeting they make arrangements to elope and return home. Naturally, this unsettles her pimp, whose thugs land Prima in the hospital (but not without an epic fight). Arnaz flees to her village, where her grandfather schools her in the deadly art of karate. With a newfound confidence and deadly resolve, she sets her sights on vengeance.

TO BURN THE SUN is without a doubt the most obscure item in Arizal’s catalog, and one that plays most directly to classic exploitation tropes. Arnaz’s performance suggests Meiko Kaji (LADY SNOWBLOOD, the FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION series), and she and Prima share a unique chemistry developed even further in SPECIAL SILENCERS and budded offscreen into a full-fledged marriage. The soundtrack is aided by some decidedly rockin’ Asian-tinged electrofunk rock.

DOUBLE CROSSER
(MEMBAKAR LINGKARAN API)
(aka CROCODILE CAGE)
Dir. Arizal, 1989.
Indonesia. 84 min.
In dubbed English.

MONDAY, AUGUST 5 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 20 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 31 – MIDNIGHT

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“The richer you get, the crazier your ideas become…”

Arizal, star Peter O’Brian and scriptwriter Deddy Armand reteam several years after THE STABILIZER for their final and most intricately-plotted film. O’Brian stars as Jack, an ex-P.I. widower and amateur boxer who has hit upon hard times after being discharged from his latest job. He keeps close companionship with his brother-in-law, Leo, who helps Jack look after his blind daughter. But when a nefarious French villain—whose dubbing would pass for a fine Maurice Chevalier parody—insists they fight each other in an illegal boxing match, he’ll stop at nothing to make it happen. First he tries kidnapping Jack’s daughter, but when that doesn’t work, he hits upon a new scheme to wedge them apart… Might the stunning young woman whom Jack rescues from an apparently impromptu attempted gang rape (after an epic car chase) have something to do with it?

In any case, it’s eventually up to Jack to steal a small airplane and fly it into the side of a mountain after making a last-second dive onto a speeding pickup truck, which he then hijacks, to save his daughter from a second kidnapping before she’s released from a diabolical device which will drop her into a cage of bloodthirsty crocodiles. Other highlights include a saccharinely sweet date montage suddenly interrupted by a random attack on the ferris wheel and countless close-ups of O’Brian’s chiseled visage, delicately framed by his fluffy mullet, as it makes subtle twitches to indicate the rage bubbling beneath his cool surface.

THE STABILIZER
Dir. Arizal, 1984.
Indonesia. 94 min.
In dubbed English.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 3 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, AUGUST 19 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30 – 10 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

“Listen, Debbie, we’re dealing with Big Leaguers here: the world’s best criminals, who are completely capable of upsetting the balance between Good and Evil. As impossible as it seems, what we need is a man with the guts and the ability to restore the balance…”

Justly considered Arizal’s masterpiece, THE STABILIZER is, by the filmmaker’s standards, a sprawling, prismatic exhibition of picaresque high-octane adventure and squad-driven justice. In his signature role, feather-mulleted Peter O’Brian—variously described as an FBI agent and American cop—leads a colorful task force of special agents in the crusade against diabolical drug smuggler Greg Rainmaker. He’s after a rumored device known as the “Narcotics Detector” for the purpose of planting drugs on his competition. Just how the device will further this purpose, or the lapse of logic in the plan owing to his targets likely, as drug smugglers, already having drugs on their person, is not clarified; nor does this justify it being incommensurately pitched as a decisive battle between the forces of Good and Evil.

In any case, O’Brian’s Peter Goldson has a decidedly personal stake in the mission, as Rainmaker had previously ravaged Goldson’s fiancée and stomped her to death with his spike-soled derby shoes. Ditto the beautiful and deadly Christina Provost, whose father invented the Narcotics Detector and is being held captive by Rainmaker. Their team is mirrored by an equally distinct lineup of opposing henchmen including a man who eats live baby alligators—animals were definitely harmed during the making of this film—and an Asian Mr. T. The lengthy drug barn raid sequence, which begins with Goldson bursting through the wall Kool-Aid Man style on the back of a motorcycle, doing donuts in a pile of cocaine, and throttling off a balcony plunging his front tire directly into a random bad guy’s head, is a cinematic tour de force—and it only anticipates the later, greater drug warehouse raid sequence. Featuring the would-be hit punch-dance ballad “The Stabilizer.”

SPECIAL SILENCERS
(SERBUAN HALILINTAR)
Dir. Arizal, 1982.
Indonesia. 86 min.
In dubbed English.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 2 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, AUGUST 19 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 24 – 10 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

When a greedy, power-hungry magician decides to assassinate the beloved village mayor to seize his political seat and glean his riches, he’s not content to simply dispatch a knife-wielding killer; rather, he slips the mayor one of his “Special Silencers,” a small tablet which causes an orgiastic gaggle of tree branches to burst forth from its victim’s stomach with a torrent of blood and entrails streaming from their surcles. The same treatment goes to the mayor’s brother, an out-of-town police officer en route to ensure his family’s safety, but his daughter Eva Arnaz escapes—and just happens to cross paths with Dutch-Indonesian exploitation stalwart and champion martial artist Barry Prima. He may be a simple, kind-hearted drifter—or perhaps a police spy. The pair fight off legions of assassins and silencers are dispersed like razor-bladed candy while the heroes work to uncover the identity of their puckish antagonist.

Remember the never-ending torrent of blood in the possessed hand scene of EVIL DEAD 2? In SPECIAL SILENCERS, a simple papercut is occasion enough for Arizal to turn on the waterworks, and it’s not merely the insane, Cronenbergian special effects—which seemingly anticipate The Thing and happen to have appeared within weeks of Alien—that occasion geysers of gore, but even more so the rough-and-tumble physical fights and alarmingly dangerous-looking stunts. Which is to say, this isn’t so much an “action-horror” hybrid as a brute-force action extravaganza in which gnarled tree branches periodically explode out of people’s stomachs in spectacularly violent ways.

FINAL SCORE
(aka STRIKE COMMANDO)
(aka ELEGY OF A MASSACRE)
(aka AN ARMY OF ONE)
Dir. Arizal, 1986.
Indonesia. 88 min.
In dubbed English.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, AUGUST 20 – 10 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

“We can do this the easy way, or I can carve what I want out of you piece-by-piece…”

Christopher Mitchum is Richard Brown, a decorated Vietnam Vet who’s settled into an idyllic family life in Southeast Asia while forging his trade in the computer business. Unfortunately, ultra baddie Donovan Hawk—played by meaty Godfrey Ho regular Mike Abbott—has his own ideas about turning Indonesia into “Silicon Valley 2” and making a lucrative grab in the tech market while using it as a front for his illegal operations. When Brown rebuffs his buyout offer, Hawk dispatches his thugs to slaughter Brown’s wife and child on the boy’s 8th birthday. Now fraught with ‘Nam flashbacks, Brown straps up to settle the FINAL SCORE. He makes an unlikely ally in the form of a beautiful ninja who has insinuated herself as Hawk’s secretary in order to wreak her own revenge over a sister who was forced into prostitution, hooked on drugs and left to die on Hawk’s watch.

This setup is what qualifies as a “pot-boiling slow-burn” in the world of Arizal, and for the majority it’s one of his grimmest films—a stealthy guerilla DEATH WISH in the jungle. But once it kicks into high gear, it’s a never-ending string of some of Arizal’s most insane set pieces, including an epic, logic-and-continuity-defying car chase and a 20-minute climactic moto-massacre with Mitchum throttling a missile-launching dirt bike while blowing up multiple entire houses, not to mention jeeps and people. The final gun-mounted motorcycle vs. gun-mounted helicopter shootout is rad as shit.

AMERICAN HUNTER
(aka LETHAL HUNTER)
Dir. Arizal, 1988.
Indonesia. 92 min.
In dubbed English.

MONDAY, AUGUST 5 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 22 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30 – MIDNIGHT

GET YOUR TICKETS!

“With the information in this study, the wrong people could start a panic on Wall Street that would bring the Western World to its knees…”

Christopher Mitchum returns for what might be the purest expression of Arizal’s shoot-’em-up aesthetic as Jake Carver, an “agent” whose self-described occupation is to “fight bad guys.” In AMERICAN HUNTER, Carver battles a multifariously evil organization over a piece of microfilm to unspecified ends. Highlights include a jeep driving off the side of one skyscraper into the window of another, a three-way motorcycle/pick-up truck/train chase, a baby being run over by a car crashing through the side of a supermarket yet miraculously surviving, an eight minute helicopter chase, an awkwardly clothed shower sex scene, one house explosion, one castle explosion, dozens of car explosions, male bondage and electrocution, and a fist fight inside a dungeon full of what appears to be cardboard boxes overflowing with shredded paper. Bill “Super Foot” Wallace stars as the bad guy whose nefariousness is conveyed through his variously keeping pet falcons and monkeys on his shoulder, and Peter O’Brian drops in for an unlikely hench villain turn as a businessman who gets the shit kicked out of him then has his legs run over then crashes through a brick wall on the hood of a car. Approximately ten of the 92 action-packed minutes have been described.

In 1964, the Moog became the first commercial synthesizer ever sold. Sixty years later, the marriage of synthesizers and cinema has woven a rich tapestry of filmic possibilities. In particular, synths have become the soulmate of genre and surrealist cinema. While most cinephiles are familiar with the unmistakable stylings of John Carpenter and Wendy Carlos, there exists an endless well of lesser-known film composers who have used synthesizers to great effect.

This April, we’ve brought together underscreened gems with otherworldly atmospheres that are heightened by their synthesizer scores; from the absurdist black comedy of THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, to the potently restrained sounds of VIGIL, to the dreadful dissonance of SPIRITS OF THE AIR, GREMLINS OF THE CLOUDS, to the glittering melodies of DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL, returning to Spectacle after twelve years. Come to your favorite collectively run cinema to bathe in sensory delights!

Join us for a Q&A with TWENTIETH CENTURY director Matthew Rankin in person on Friday, April 19th at 7:30 pm.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Dir. Matthew Rankin, 2019.
Canada. 90 min.
In English and French.

TUESDAY, APRIL 2 – 10 PM [ TICKETS ]
SATURDAY, APRIL 13 – MIDNIGHT [ TICKETS ]
FRIDAY, APRIL 19 – 7:30 PM, w/ Filmmaker Q&A, this event is $10 [ Q&A TICKETS ]
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24 – 10 PM [ TICKETS ]

In 2019, singular Canadian filmmaker, animator, and documentarian Matthew Rankin unleashed his first feature in the form of a surrealist satirical fever dream depicting the rise of Canada’s longest-serving— and perhaps loneliest— Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King. Viewers follow King through his trials and tribulations as he strives to become the man his mother has been grooming him to be since birth: preserver of the National Disappointment. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY takes extensive liberties in its dramatization of real historical figures and events while nailing prevailing notions that Canadianness is synonymous with earnestness, shame, and passive aggression.

From beginning to end, it is a maximalist work of art set against gorgeous German Expressionist backdrops which create intentional artificiality, suggesting that the concept of Canada may, in itself, be fake. Highlighting its hyper-stylization is a score that vacillates between synthwave and patriotic fanfare by composers Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux and Peter Venne. Come to the Burning S for a viewing experience unlike any other (and to support the ongoing efforts to increase appreciation for Canadian culture in Williamsburg, Brooklyn).

Preceded by:

THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT
dir. Matthew Rankin, 2017
Canada. 8 mins.
In English.

DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL
(HUKKUNUD ALPINISTI HOTELL)
Dir. Grigori Kromanov, 1979.
Estonia. 84 min.
In Estonian with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, APRIL 6 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 21 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 25 – 7:30 PM

[ TICKETS ]

Returning to Spectacle after 12 years, DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL is a sleek blend of thriller, noir, and science fiction based on the Strugatsky brothers’ novel of the same name. Opening with a winding upward mountain drive, we meet Inspector Peter Glebsky en route to respond to an anonymous tip at an isolated hotel in the Alps. Though all seems well upon arrival, he opts to stay the night and finds himself trapped by an avalanche with his bizarre fellow guests. It soon becomes clear that everything is not as it seems.

The hotel itself is a marvel of modern architecture in black and neon set sharply against bright, pristine snow, while its interior brings to mind the unforgettable and deeply ’70s mise-en-scene of cult classics like MESSIAH OF EVIL. The score by pioneering Estonian synth programmer and prog rocker Sven Grünberg, composed on an EMS Synthi 100, is an ethereal auditory dreamscape.

Special thanks to the Estonian Film Institute.

VIGIL
Dir. Vincent Ward, 1984.
New Zealand. 90 min.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 12 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, APRIL 23 – 10 PM
MONDAY, APRIL 29 – 7:30 PM

[ TICKETS ]

The first New Zealand film ever to compete in Cannes, VIGIL is an unsettling, atmospheric drama about an eleven-year-old girl named Toss who witnesses the falling death of her father while out herding sheep on their remote farm. The only other witness is a mysterious hunter, Ethan, who carries her father’s body back home. Shortly afterward, Ethan begins working on the farm with Toss’s grandfather, Birdie. As Ethan’s relationship with her mother becomes sexually charged, Toss’s distrust toward him increases in complexity. We see the world through the eyes of a girl on the precipice of teenagehood as she experiences change, loss, and the invasion of her small, isolated world. Breathtaking imagery and unorthodox framing are complimented by composer Jack Body’s score, which combines synthesizers with string instruments to build a restrained soundscape that pierces the film’s potent, unreleased tension. This arthouse coming-of-age story, wearing the clothes of folk horror, is an indispensable contribution to the misty sheepcore canon.

SPIRITS OF THE AIR, GREMLINS OF THE CLOUDS
Dir. Alex Proyas, 1987.
Australia. 93 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, APRIL 5 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 14 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 18 – 7:30 PM

[ TICKETS ]

Alex Proyas’s first feature is a striking, surreal, and meditative post-apocalyptic sci-fi set in the Australian outback. The film follows Felix and Betty, two ultra-religious siblings, who have lived their lives in complete isolation until the arrival of Smith, a mysterious wanderer who is attempting to elude vague malicious pursers. Smith and Felix form an unlikely friendship as Felix’s hyperfixation proves to be Smith’s only route to salvation: building a flying machine. Meanwhile, Betty acquires a hyperfixation of her own through her obsessive distrust of Smith.

SPIRITS OF THE AIR, GREMLINS OF THE CLOUDS is a low-budget audiovisual tour-de-force. The film’s quirkiness and borderline steampunk aesthetics walk a fine line that never crosses over from inventiveness into cringe. While synthesizers typically bring to mind tight, catchy electronic melodies, they are, at their core, experimental instruments of infinite possibilities; composer Peter Miller expertly captures the film’s arid isolation with his lingering, dissonant score. If you’ve ever longed to watch a version of MAD MAX that was inspired by Tarkovsky, this is the film for you.

NEKO-MIMI
(猫耳)
Dir. Jun Kurosawa, 1993.
Japan. 80 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles and English intertitles.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 19 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 25 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 30 – 7:30 PM

ADVANCE TICKETS

“Why this farce, day after day?”

NEKO-MIMI is the only feature-length directorial effort of by the prolific experimental filmmaker Jun Kurosawa (b. 1964), who also acts as cinematographer, editor, co-writer, and composer. Kurosawa set out to create “the most beautiful cinema crystal” that would remain after eliminating the usual things that make a narrative film “work”: “human emotions, time, space, and montage.”

The film begins with excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s ENDGAME and continues in the same absurdist and apocalyptic vein: Think E. Elias Merhige’s BEGOTTEN by way of Alan Schneider and Beckett’s FILM, but with lush color photography and a characteristic Kurosawa soundscape that undulates between drones, choral passages, field recordings and harsh noise (reminiscent of his one-time collaborator Merzbow).

NEKO-MIMI, which translates to “cat ear,” is the dreamlike tale of three girls and a boy whose existences are spent playing games in a space resembling the ruins of a laboratory. Endless repetitions distort their senses of past, present, or future. They playfully toy with a body, dissecting its eyeballs and other parts. Surrounded by cameras, photographs, film, and projectors, the subjects embrace their surveillance, predicting our present panopticon.

Rarely seen outside of Japan since being presented at the 1993 International Film Festival Rotterdam, Spectacle is excited to present NEKO-MIMI in a recent digital restoration from a 16mm print.

Special thanks to Kraut Film.

As is tradition, Spectacle begins the New Year by looking back at the best programs and films of the previous year. In case you missed them the first time around, need to see them again, or want to drag your friends to their next favorite flick. All January, we will be encoring our favorites as voted on by the collective of volunteers and our members. Become a member today to vote in next year’s BEST OF.

The BEST OF SPECTACLE class of 2023:

PIN
Dir. Sandor Stern. 1988.
Canada. 104 mins.
In English.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 05 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 27 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31 – 10 PM

BUY TICKETS

Leon, a troubled child, befriends his father’s lifesized medical dummy, Pin. Leon’s reality crumbles following the death of his parents, and his obsession with Pin takes a dangerous turn.

The best way to describe PIN is by its full title, ‘PIN: A PLASTIC NIGHTMARE.’ Although the film might seem like a classic killer doll movie, à la PUPPET MASTER (1989), the true terror of PIN comes from within. Pin explores themes of childhood trauma, authoritarian parenting and object attachment in this emotionally driven psychological horror.

Based on the novel by the author of THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE, Andrew Neiderman, and directed by Sandor Stern, screenwriter of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979). Together, they have reimagined the killer doll subgenre without the comfort of childhood nostalgia. The result is a harrowing film starring David Hewlett (STARGATE: ATLANTIS, CUBE) and Terry O’Quinn (LOST, THE STEPFATHER).

Originally screened as part of SPECTOBER 2023.

DRACULA IN VEGAS
Dir. Nick Millard, 1999
63 min, USA
In English

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 03 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, JANUARY 16 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26 – MIDNIGHT

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A young, German vampire arrives in Las Vegas in order to put the bite on unsuspecting showgirls and hookers.

Shot on video for what looks to be a total budget of $15, DRACULA IN VEGAS follows a young vampire on his trials and tribulations looking for love in late 90’s Vegas, plastic fangs and all.

From the director of Spectacle favorite CRIMINALLY INSANE (1975), this late career gem of ANTI-VALENTINE’S garbage (clocking in at just 63 minutes!) is not to be missed.

Come for the incredibly overwrought accents and regional no-budget charm, stay for the late film rant about art films vs pornography, including the heaviest name drops ever featured in a movie this cheap.

Originally screened February 2023.

LE ORME
(aka FOOTPRINTS) (aka FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON) (aka PRIMAL IMPULSE)
Dir. Luigi Bazzoni, 1975
Italy. 96 mins.
In English (dubbed) with a few minutes of Italian.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 04 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 25 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JANUARY 28 – 5 PM

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In Luigi Bazzoni’s uniquely hallucinatory LE ORME, memories of a science fiction film seen in childhood return to haunt Alice (Florinda Bolkan, of LIZARD IN A WOMAN’S SKIN). The fragments of the film lodged in her memory concern an astronaut left behind on the moon; as Alice becomes more and more preoccupied with this vision, her life begins to spin out of control.

Shown at Spectacle in its first “Spectober” programme, LE ORME (originally reedited and rereleased in the States and Europe as PRIMAL IMPULSE) is an unsung masterpiece of 70s genre cinema, marrying the sustained ambient dread of gialli with god-tier cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (just after lensing Elizabeth Taylor in the similarly mental IDENTIKIT and before Bertolucci’s epic folly NOVOCENTO.) Klaus Kinski features in an extended cameo as the head of Mission Control.

Originally screened in July in partnership with the Rockaway Film Festival, and in August 2023.

EGG
Dir. Yukihiko Tsutsumi, 2005
Japan. 72 min.
In Japanese w/ English subtitles.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 12 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 20 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, JANUARY 30 – 7:30 PM

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Her whole life Tsukiko Arai has been plagued by visions of a hellish world solely inhabited by one large egg any time she closes her eyes. One day, the egg hatches and Tsukiko must come to terms with her past and the evil unleashed inside her mind. In the vein of similar Japanese mind-benders like Miike’s GOZU but wholly its own beast, EGG. is a scramble eof deep fears, slapstick comedy, and Gilliam-esque workplace absurdity. From the mind of Yukihiko Tsusumi, the director of 2LDK.

Originally screened in April 2023.

MINDFIELD
LA MÉMOIRE ASSASSINÉE
Dir. Jean-Claude Lord, 1989
Canada. 92 min
In English

SATURDAY, JANUARY 06 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, JANUARY 16 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JANUARY 29 – 10 PM

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Not to be confused with the Alien Workshop video of the same name, MINDFIELD stars Michael Ironside as the hard-nosed sergeant, Kellen O’Reilly, who is fresh from a divorce, and at the center of a brewing police union strike. Errant memories, depression, and flashbacks plague O’Reilly who deals silently with his ongoing history of mental health issues.

The police union’s legal representative, Sarah Paradis (Lisa Langlois), is splitting her time between the strike and prosecuting an ongoing case against the medical facility Coldhaven and its head doctor, Satorius (Christopher Plummer). Paradis alleges that Satorius used CIA funds to “play with human brains” and conduct experiments on unsuspecting patients. But Sarah is not the only degree of separation that Sergeant O’Reilly has with Coldhaven. If O’Reilly can regain his memories, thwart a group of company men up from the states, and unlock the killer implanted deep inside, will he be able to close the books on Coldhaven once and for all?

Leave it to the Canadians to have the realist take on Project MKUltra. Jean-Claude Lord’s MINDFIELD is surprisingly grounded and gritty with Ironside giving possibly the most accurate on-screen performance of someone under the effects of LSD. Nailing that “oh fuck” moment when the peak hits and you realize any simple task is just too much to ask for. The CIA operatives are also not exaggerated to the levels of tinseltown sexiness seen in the likes of Ethan Hunt or Jack Ryan. They appear as they are, schlubs. Evil terrorist schlubs intertwined with organized crime. The CIA would never let Hollywood get away with such a portrayal.

Originally screened in September 2023 as part of the series THE SPY WHO DOSED ME.

TOPOLOGY OF SIRENS
Dir. Jonathan Davies, 2021
USA. 106 min.
In English.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 09 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JANUARY 21 – 7:30 PM

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After discovering a set of cryptic microcassettes in her new home, Cas is drawn into a meditative mystery of environmental sound and experimental music.

Cas, an academic assistant and amateur musician, moves into her aunt’s old home. In the bedroom closet, she finds a cache of mysteriously labeled microcassette tapes, containing cryptic recordings of sounds ranging from everyday objects to abstract soundscapes. Cas’s curiosity to discover the origin of these tapes leads her on a meditative journey through unknown verdant Californian landscapes, encountering experimental music performances, eccentric shop owners, and early music treasures along the way. As her adventure progresses, the mystery unravels in equally enigmatic and enlightening ways.

Showcasing a softer, pastoral version of LA and featuring a lovely soundtrack, Topology of Sirens is a beguiling treasure that should be experienced in a theater. For fans of Kelly Reichardt, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Myst.

Originally screened in July 2023.

OPEN DOOM CRESCENDO
Dir. Terry Chiu, 2022
Canada. 175 min.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14 – 7:30 PM, BUY TICKETS
SATURDAY, JANUARY 27 – 6:00 PM, with Director Q&A, this event is $10. BUY TICKETS

In the destroyed present, the aggressively badass Keikei (Xinkun Dai) and her lackadaisical white-shirted pal Rev (Ging Yu Kei) wander the wasteland looking for their friend Spike (Matias Rittatore), in between running into the confrontational Lady Moondrift (Pei Yao Xu) and her Candy Ass Kickers (They kick candy ass!!!), or the deadly Psycho on The Radio – whose kill count is like into the 900s – with the promise that one day, they’ll get all the answers to their problems from the Embodiment of Angst.

Writer/Director Terry Chiu’s an open book. His fears, anxiety, humour and personality are splattered all over the epic 3-hour running time of OPEN DOOM CRESCENDO, but the greatest trick he pulls is balancing it all like a circus acrobat juggling ten chainsaws dipped in battery acid.

This isn’t merely stream-of-consciousness madness, or wackiness for the sake of it, but a well-thought-out (Every line is carefully scripted) piece that is also hilariously funny. Terry’s base style is ADULT SWIM meets SHINYA TSUKAMOTO, but he knows when to slow things down, to engross the viewer in his characters’ twisty philosophical musings, brilliantly clarified by Burnt-In Chinese/English subtitles, and a narrative gambit straight out of END OF EVANGELION, that puts the endeavour in a different emotional context, before the audience is bodyslammed with a climax worthy of a quadrillion dollar blockbuster (but with more cardboard). You may not get all the answers on the first viewing, but that’s part of the design.

Originally screened in July 2023.

THE PLAINS
Dir. David Easteal, 2022
Australia. 180 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 06 – 6 PM
SUNDAY, JANUARY 28 – 7:30 PM

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“In Easteal’s first feature, the Australian director adopts a durational model of filmmaking that arguably hit its peak around the turn of the 2010s, but he parlays the conceptual framework into a casually engrossing work free of slow cinema’s more trying aspects (e.g., long passages of silence; quasi-symbolic characters on seemingly endless quests toward enlightenment). Running 180 minutes and set almost entirely inside a car, The Plains depicts the daily commute of a middle-aged businessman from the parking lot of a Melbourne law office to his home in the city’s outer suburbs. Every day, at just after 5 p.m., Andrew (Andrew Rakowski) gets into his Hyundai, calls his wife, and checks in with his ailing mother, before listening to talk radio for the remainder of the hour-long drive. Occasionally, he offers a lift to a coworker, David (played by Easteal), who’s going through a breakup and is generally dissatisfied with his personal and professional life. Over the course of the film— told recursively, beginning at the same time and location each day—Andrew and David reveal themselves in casual, offhand conversations (apparently scripted but delivered so naturally as to evoke the feel of a documentary) that accumulate into an acute portrait of modern life—one in which otherwise unarticulated beliefs, regrets, and anxieties bring to light a shared humanity too often lost in the commotion of the world.”
—Jordan Cronk, Film Comment

Originally screened in August 2023.

PULGASARI aka BULGASARI
Dir. Sang-ok Shin, 1985
North Korea. 95 min
In Korean with English subtitles.

MONDAY, JANUARY 08 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 20 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23 – 10 PM

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Over the span of 20 years, Sang-ok Shin – sometimes called “the Orson Wells of South Korea” – made upwards of 60 films but all that changed in 1978 when the studio closed. Things would go from bad to worse when in what should be an unbelievable turn of events, Shin and his wife (actress Choi Eun-Hee) were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il. Kim’s intent was to have Shin create films showcasing the power and might of the Korea Workers Party for all the world to see, with Choi Eun-Hee as their star. Before their escape to Vienna in 1986, and after years in prison camps, they would make 7 films – PULGASARI being a crown jewel among them.

While seemingly an obvious Godzilla rip-off, the film is about an evil king in feudal Korea who learns of a coming peasant rebellion. The king gathers all the metal he can find – farming tools, cooking pots, etc – to make into weapons to squash the small army. A dying blacksmith uses the last of his strength to create a monster made of rice – Pulgasari. When his daughter’s blood hits it, the monster comes to life and traverses the countryside, eating iron – as monsters are wont to do.

Not seen outside of Korea for over a decade after its release, the film has gained a cult following for its special effects – with Kenpachiro Satsuma who was Godzilla for over a decade in the Pulgasari costume!

Originally screened in March 2023.

LAURIN
(aka LAURIN: A JOURNEY INTO DEATH)
Dir. Robert Sigl, 1989
83 mins. Germany.
In (dubbed) English.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JANUARY 21 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 27 – MIDNIGHT

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Robert Sigl’s debut feature LAURIN takes place in a small port town in Germany at the turn of the 20th century, where children have begun to go missing. After her pregnant mother is murdered, nine year old Laurin (Dóra Szinetár) must contend with visions both dreamlike and nightmarish – and laced with possible clues towards the mystery encircling the village.

Made when Sigl was just 25 years old, LAURIN is a gothic fairy tale of ethereal beauty, evenly evoking Fritz Lang’s M., Victor Erice’s SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE and Richard Blackburn’s LEMORA: A CHILD’S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL. Shot on location in Hungary and heavy on ambience (abetted greatly by the work of cinematographer Nyika Jancsó, son of Miklos), the film barely qualifies as horror; it’s more of a gothic fairy tale, ruminating on innocence lost, suppression of sexuality and the concentric nature of abuse handed down across generations.

Originally screened as part of SPECTOBER 2023.

FINAL MARKS: THE ART OF THE CARVED LETTER
Dirs. Frank Muhly Jr. & Peter O’Neill, 1979
United States. 49 min
In English

SUNDAY, JANUARY 07 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 18 – 7:30 PM

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FINAL MARKS documents the work of the John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island. Founded in 1705 by the eponymous English immigrant, the shop was run by his family for over 220 years until it was purchased by calligrapher John Howard Benson in the 1920s. It remains within the Benson family to this day. By the time the documentary was filmed in the late 1970’s, Benson’s son John Everett Benson, or “Fud”, ran the shop with his associates: John Hegnauer and Brooke Roberts; all of whom appear notably young and hip in bell-bottom jeans and sneakers. It should be noted that even by this point, carving letters into stone was already considered a dying art; replaced on graves and buildings by industrial techniques such as sandblasting, and pneumatic chisels.

The filmmakers were given complete access to the shop for over two years, allowing them to film intimate moments with the artisans in their day-to-day lives. As the subjects correspond with clients, source stone for the shop, and travel to Washington D.C. for an on-site commission adorning the then incomplete I.M. Pei extension of the National Gallery, directors Muhly and O’Neill take a subtle and restrained approach to capturing the shop’s endeavors; creating a film that is as meditative and contemplative as its subjects. The poised restraint of the camera’s movements is an equal match to the elegance of Benson’s lettering.

Fud Benson and Hegnauer act as the primary narrators of the film, musing about their motivations, beliefs, and ideologies as they relate to the practice and vocation of carving letters. For Benson and his team, cutting the stone is only a small part of the endeavor; designing the letterforms and their collective layout is the real challenge. Benson visits the Common Burial Ground in Newport, located just up the street from the shop, to investigate the stonework of those who came before him. He comments on his father’s early carving, his influences, and his abilities as a letterer and letter cutter; primarily focusing on how he used the ancient roman brush style to inform, and give personality to his stone cutting.

Screening with:
FAREWELL ETAOIN SHRDLU
Dir. David Loeb Weiss, 1978
United States. 29 min
In English

Narrated by Carl Schlesinger, and named after the keyboard arrangement of the Linotype machine (Etaoin Shrdlu being the Qwerty of the pre-desktop computer age), this film documents the final day of hot metal typesetting within the composing room of the New York Times (Sunday, July 1st, 1978). The Linotype and Ludlow machines being used will be “by morning, relics of the past”. The film gives a detailed account of how a Linotype machine operates, its components, and how it is used by a trained compositor. Followed by the rest of the newspaper making process, including layout, proofing, mold making, and printing; all seen only minutes before deadline. One older staff member decides to make the night his last, retiring alongside the Linotype machine so as to avoid having to learn any of the new computerized photographic methods, which are detailed in the latter part of the film.

In a monologue at the end of the film, Schlesinger takes solace in the fact that, while these new computer processes have replaced what he once knew, there are still human hands, eyes, and minds behind them. If he only knew what was to come.

Originally screened in June as part of the series COUNTER ACTS: TYPE AND LETTERING ON FILM AND VIDEO.

CITY OF LOST SOULS
(STADT DER VERLORENEN SEELEN)
Dir. Rosa von Praunheim, 1982
91 minutes. Germany.
In German and English with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 03 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31 – 7:30 PM

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Onetime 82 Club performer and trans pioneer Angie Stardust becomes den mother to a group of weirdo queer American émigrés at her Berlin burger restaurant slash boarding house in this absurdist glam musical. Largely drawn from the real-life backgrounds of its stars—including punk icon Jayne County, performance artist Juaquin la Habana, and porn star Tron von Hollywood—and with a number of new wave earworms taken from County and Hollywood’s live U-Bahn to Memory Lane revue, CITY OF LOST SOULS is inclusive, incisive, and one of the greatest trans films ever made.

Originally screened in June as part of the series OUR BODIES ARE STILL ALIVE: SIX FILMS BY ROSA VON PRAUNHEIM.

RA: PATH OF THE SUN GOD
Dir. Lesley Keen, 1990
Scotland. 72 min.
In English.

MONDAY, JANUARY 08 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JANUARY 14 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, JANUARY 30 – 10 PM

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A three-part animated feature film on themes from ancient Egyptian art and mythology.

Four years in the making, RA was created and shot entirely in Glasgow by Persistent Vision Animation, Scotland’s only animation studio at the time. The film combines traditional animation techniques with special optical effects to produce a dream-like evocation of Ancient Egyptian beliefs about the Creation and Man’s place within it.

DAWN: The Creation
The first part of the film is given over to the Egyptian Genesis. The Egyptians had many gods and goddesses and creation myths. Ra brings these myths together in a single version and concentrates on the story of Osiris and Isis and their battle with their evil brother Set.

NOON: The Year of the King
Part two shows the intertwining of the world of the gods with that of the Divine Pharaoh, whom the ancient Egyptians believed to be the son of the Sun God Ra. The life of the Divine Pharaoh is depicted as a journey through the rituals which surround his initiation into temple life.

NIGHT: The Gates of the Underworld
In death, the Pharaoh continues his journey in the Underworld in the boat of the Sun God Ra, traveling through the twelve hours of night and conquering the powers of darkness before being resurrected at the dawn of the new day.

Screening with:
TAKING A LINE FOR A WALK: A HOMAGE TO THE WORK OF PAUL KLEE
Dir. Lesley Keen, 1983
Scotland. 11 min.
In English.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
Dir. Lesley Keen, 1984
Scotland. 6 min.
In English.

BURRELLESQUE
Dir. Lesley Keen, 1990
Scotland. 7 min.
In English.

Originally screened in August 2023.

SHOW ME LOVE
(FUCKING ÅMÅL)
Dir. Lukas Moodysson, 1998
89 mins. Sweden.
In Swedish with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 18 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JANUARY 22 – 7:30 PM

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If there’s a tactile and poetic quality to Lukas Moodysson’s FUCKING ÅMÅL (known in the states as SHOW ME LOVE) it’s probably owed to the Swedish filmmaker’s background as a poet. To tell the story of two high school aged girls, bad girl Elin (Alexandra Dahlström) and wallflower Agnes (Rebecka Liljeberg), Moodysson shot his debut feature on Super 16mm, lending his dive into the psychic landscape of young women who feel the claustrophobia and malaise of insularity an invigorating textural quality.

While Agnes nurses a nearly debilitating crush on Elin, compounded by a general sense of outsider-ism at school, Elin starts to feel the crush of the aimlessness and dullness of Amal’s terrain. The school parties and insistent boys give her nothing; but there’s something about Agnes’ sweetness and vulnerability that contrasts with her rashness that creates a magnetic charge between the two.

Special thanks to American Genre Film Archive.

Originally screened in May 2023.

ANTI-CLOCK
Dir. Jane Arden & Jack Bond, 1979
UK. 104 min.
In English.

MONDAY, JANUARY 15 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26 – 7:30 PM

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A groundbreaking marriage of cinema and video art, ANTI-CLOCK is the story of Joseph, a man subjected to intense and bizarre experimental therapies to alleviate his suicidal ideations. Following the unfortunate death of collaborative partner Jane Arden, co-director Jack Bond had ANTI-CLOCK sealed away from the public for 30 years until convinced to revisit and restore the film in 2009 by Arden’s children.

Originally screened in April 2023 as part of the series TWO FILMS BY JACK BOND.

DANDY DUST
Dir. A. Hans Scheirl, 1998
Austria. 94 min.
In English

TUESDAY, JANUARY 09 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26 – 10 PM

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Dust, a split-personality cyborg of fluid gender, zooms through time and space in search of his/her own memories and a sense of understanding. S/he travels from the Planet of White Dust where war is constant, to the Planet of Blood and Swelling, a hybrid of his/her father’s body.

A cyborg with a split personality and fluid gender zooms through time to collect his/her selves in a struggle against a family obsessed by lineage: This cartoon-like futuristic low-budget horror satire by the Austro-British filmmaker Hans Scheirl turns the real into the absurd, for the duration of a small cybernetic, chemo-sexual film adventure at least. Identity is just a matter of creativity, and far beyond cinema’s limitations.
—Stefan Grissemann

Originally screened in March 2023.

THE VELVET VAMPIRE
Dir. Stephanie Rothman, 1971
United States. 80 min.
In English.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 04 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JANUARY 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19 – MIDNIGHT

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Lee and his wife, Susan, accept the invitation of the mysterious vixen, Diane LeFanu, to join her at her secluded desert estate. Tensions begin to arise when the couple, unaware at first that Diane is really a centuries-old vampire, realize that they’ve both become the object of the temptress’ seductions.

Following the success of THE STUDENT NURSES, Rothman and Swartz reteamed with Larry Woolner on this unorthodox modern-day vampire tale. Rather than approach it as a straightforward horror story, Rothman used the film as an opportunity to subvert common vampire tropes by making the vampire figure a woman, equally deadly and desirous, and painting Susan’s character as a protagonist rather than a victim.

Visually, the film is Rothman’s most surreal, drawing inspiration from works of Cocteau and Franju as much as it did the adjacent European erotic vampire scene (DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, VAMPYROS LESBOS). Rothman’s vampire is less a horror icon than a totem of limitless pleasure, one who eschews a coffin for a lush king-size bed, large enough for three.

Originally screened in September 2023 as part of the series THE FILMS OF STEPHANIE ROTHMAN.

WHO CAN KILL A CHILD?
Dir. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador. 1976.
Spain. 102 mins.
In English and Spanish.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 05 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24 – 7:30 PM

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English tourists Tom and Beth take a trip to the remote island of Almanzora off the Spanish coast. They discover there are no adults on the island, only children.

WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? was riddled with distribution problems. In an attempt to sell the movie, producers renamed it multiple times for different regions, including CHILDREN OF THE CORN TORTILLA and TRAPPED. Luckily, the film withstood the test of time and eventually became a cult classic. The film was remade in 2012 as COME OUT AND PLAY.

For this presentation, Spectacle will be showing THE ISLAND OF THE DAMNED cut of the movie. This version was the original release in the US, without the opening ten minutes of child murder documentary footage.

Originally screened in November 2023 as part of the series KILLER KIDS.

RICHARD LAYMON’S IN THE DARK
Dir. Clifton Holmes, 2000
United States. 106 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 06 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, JANUARY 11 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JANUARY 22 – 10 PM

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Play a game with only one rule … keep playing

We are very excited to screen this never-officially-released adaptation of the never before-or-since adapted Richard Laymon novel, IN THE DARK. The novel follows librarian Jane, who finds a note one day from the unseen and unheard ‘Master of Games’, daring her to complete increasingly more drastic challenges for money as she gets drawn further into the perverse world of the game.

Laymon’s writing typically leaned toward the extreme and the splatter, but Clifton’s adaptation focuses on the discomfort of what goes unseen, steeping us in Jane’s mundane world as she sinks deeper into the game, seemingly unable to stop herself, and brilliantly tapping into the human impulse to find out what happens if we go just a little further. IN THE DARK feels like an art-house slow burn SAW without the on screen torture.

Shot on mini-DV on a miniscule budget, what Clifton Holmes’ Chicago-set adaptation lacks in budget, it more than compensates for in pure mood and dread, entering the rare pantheon of films that manage to improve upon their source material.

Originally screened as part of SPECTOBER 2023.

DEPRISA, DEPRISA
(FASTER, FASTER!)
Dir. Carlos Saura, 1981
Spain. 99 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 05 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JANUARY 07 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 20 – 10 PM

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DEPRISA, DEPRISA (1981) traces the burgeoning romance between Pablo, a disaffected teenage thief, and Angela, an intrepid young bartender, against a life of crime. Directed by the recently deceased Carlos Saura — whose films perceptively embodied the latent frustration pervasive across Spain during its transition to democracy — DEPRISA, DEPRISA won the Golden Bear at the 1981 Berlinale, and stands out as one of the master-filmmaker’s most down-to-earth and affecting works. The flamenco soundtrack serves as the driving force of the film, with exciting scenes to the rhythm of artists such as Lole y Manuel and Los Chunguitos.

Originally screened in April 2023 as part of the series CINE QUINQUI: SKETCHES OF SPAIN’S UNDERBELLY .