Author: spectacletheater

SHRIEK SHOW XII

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SHRIEK SHOW XII

It’s that time again! Come on down to Spectacle Theater for the TWELFTH (!!) EDITION of our annual SHRIEK SHOW MARATHON!

From noon through midnight, we’ll present a smattering of our favorite hidden gems of horror movies, ranging from high budget ghost stories to the cheapest SOV slasher garbage you’ve ever seen. Think of it like a transcontinental multi-decade 14 hour Blood Brunch session, curated for maximum brain shreddage.

Starting SATURDAY, 10/14 at NOON – miss it if you dare!!!!

APPROXIMATE START TIMES:

MOVIE 1 – 12PM

MOVIE 2 – 2PM

MOVIE 3 – 3:45PM

MOVIE 4 – 5:30PM

MOVIE 5 – 6:45PM

MOVIE 6 – 8:00PM

MOVIE 7 – 10PM

MOVIE 8 – MIDNIGHT

Trailer and hints below! Day passes $25 / individual screenings $5 each

ADVANCE DAY PASSES


12:00 PM
XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXX XXXX XXXXXXXX
dir. XX XXXXXX, XXXX XXXX, 1989
China. 93 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

We kick off with our gentlest selection of the day, a rare big budget mainland Chinese horror film that has the energy of a Saturday morning cartoon (and some rudimentary effects that, lord help me, managed to spook this jaded programmer!).

Set during the production of a film, a sound engineer and lead actress stumble on the ghost of a murdered girl while recording foley in a suitably abandoned mansion. Features the cutest ghost you’ve ever seen, an action montage of sound equipment being assembled, and a rousing MIDI rendition of Also sprach Zarathustra.


2:00 PM
XXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX
dir. XXXX XXXXXX, 1983
United States. 82 min.
In English.

Next up, a recently unearthed gem directed by one of Fassbinder’s protege’s.

Follows a small town that’s been cursed since they burned witches at the stake in the 1700s. When three modern women move to town, the delicate balance is upset, and buried resentments come to the surface.

An early 80s film with a surprisingly progressive POV, and a delicious tale of supernatural revenge – bit of a slow burn but features some great practical effects and a few notable face melts, as well as a supporting turn by one of the greatest character actors to have ever lived.


3:45 PM
XXXXXXXX
dir. XXXX XXXXXX, 2005
United States. 94 min.
In English.

Our third offering of the day is an underseen late career high point from one of horror’s most celebrated auteurs.

The synopsis is about as stock as it comes – family moves to new place to start over (this time a mortuary in a small town in California), spooky things start happening – and it may start a little rough, but once it gets cooking, it’s a funhouse ride for the ages set in the industrial rot of America in decline.

Full of disgusting splatter effects, jump scares galore, unhinged performances, and a killer ending. Not to be missed!


5:30 PM
XXXXX XXXXXX
dir. XXXXXXXXX XXXXXX
Japan. 54 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

Our fourth film of the day is a short one, clocking in at just under an hour, but it manages to pack in quite a bit in its limited runtime.

The plot loosely follows two photographers investigating rumors of paranormal phenomenon in a forest when one of them is ‘infected’ by a mythical woodland creature, bringing it home to his unsuspecting wife…

Lands somewhere between a live action anime and the tiki doll segment of Trilogy of Terror, and packs more gore and squirms into 54 minutes than some movies twice its length.


6:45 PM
XXXX XXXXX
dir. XXXX XXXXX XXXX, 1992
United States. 70 min.
In English

It’s almost dark, and it’s time for our first sleazo SOV of the day – one of over a dozen films by this no-budget slauteur (sorry).

This film takes place over the course of one night – it’s the last day of high school, and local punching bag and universally hated nerd Jimmy is about to get pranked hard. Shortly after recovering, Jimmy, a chemistry wizard, whips himself up a rage-potion that gives him telekinetic powers (naturally), and starts murdering his tormentors one by one.

Starring the oldest high schoolers you’ve ever seen + featuring some hilarious and inventive home brew kills, plus a hilarious “twist” ending and a killer lo-fi metal soundtrack tying the whole thing together.


8:00 PM
XXXXXXXXXXXX
dir. XXXXX X XXXXXXXX, 1982
Canada. 85 min.
In English

Regular Spectacle attendees may recognize our sixth film of the night from the Blood Brunch trailer – a Canadian video-nasty set in New England, where a hot young reverend (played by a notable 70s soap opera star) and his family move into an abandoned historic house with a bad history to keep it from being demolished after two local kids are killed in a delightfully gruesome cold open.

Featuring a surprisingly high body count and fantastic effects, as well as a great Goblin-aping score, this is an underrated gem. Fun fact, it was such a hit on video in the UK that it went on to be released theatrically there 2 years later under a different title!

10:00 PM
XXXXXXXX: XXX XXXXXX XXXXX
dir. XXXX XXXXXXXXX, 1997
Germany. 106 min.
In German with English Subtitles

Seven features in – reality is a long forgotten dream. The outside world is a myth. There is only the shrieking and the show of shrieks.

A splatter masterpiece by one of the best no-budget gorehounds ever to have lived. Easily the highest body count of the night by several orders of magnitude, the plot loosely follows a dysfunctional family and their teenage son who’s having strange dreams. The teen soon digs up a strange book and potion in his garden, awakening a demon and an army of the undead in the process.


MIDNIGHT
XX XXXX XXXX XXXXX
dir. XXXXX XXXXXX, 1999
United States. 77 min.
In English

We’ve done it. We’ve made it through seven films. There is only one, the final reckoning, our midnight special.

While this final flick can’t hope to hold a candle to the bloodshed of the 10pm, it more than earns its keep in pure gusto and go-for-broke DIY energy.

A New England shot-on-mini-DV gem featuring vampires, angels, demons, incredible t-shirts and the best possum appearance in cinema history. Think FROM DUSK TIL DAWN made with the budget and enthusiasm level of a backyard wrestling video (the new blu-ray release features an archival blooper reel titled “scenes that hurt”), unhinged lore drops, and some of the best and most inventive gore no-money can buy.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, SHRIEKERS!!!!

Fist Church Presents: THE FIST FRIGHT MARATHON

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Kicking off SPECTOBER 2023, Spectacle Theater is thrilled to present the FIST FRIGHT marathon. Join us on Sunday, October 1st for an all-day installment of Fist Church, featuring SIX of the bone chilling-est, back breaking-est, vampire hopping-est kung fu and wuxia horror flicks we have to offer.

Tales of zombies, vampires, and all varieties of vengeful undead had been staples of Chinese folklore for centuries, but this type of jiangshi fiction rarely crossed over into the martial arts fare that anchored regional film industries throughout the 1960s and 70s. That changed in the early 1980s with the release of Sammo Hung’s hugely popular action-horror-comedy hybrid, ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND, delivering top-tier action choreography while catering to audiences’ growing appetite for the type of horror and slasher fare coming in from abroad.

In the wake of its success, independent studios across the region leapt (hopped?) on the jiangshi trend. The decades that followed would see some of the wildest kung fu and wuxia concepts ever put to film, with witches & warlocks, hopping corpses. electrified skeletons, warrior spirits, necromancing ninjas, psychotic swordsmen, and infernal felines becoming common sights even beyond the Category-III circuit.

This mystery meat marathon of black belts and black magic kicks off Sunday, October 1st at NOON, and continues late into the evening. Tickets are $5 per screening, or you can grab a full day pass in advance for $20! Screening times and programming hints are below:

ADVANCE DAY PASSES ON SALE NOW!


12:00 PM

XXXX XX XXXXXX
dir. XXX XXXX, 1981
Hong Kong. 79 min.
In English (dubbed).

Our afternoon kicks off with a feature that tells everything you need to know about it with just its title…

A wickedly paced action-comedy from a former Shaw Bros. Studios mainstay, about a martial artist responsible for the imprisonment of a local criminal. The criminal soon returns, enlisting a Taoist priest to resurrect a gang of undead in an elaborate plot to get revenge on his captor.


1:30 PM

XXXX XX XXXX XXXXXX XXX XXXXX
dir. XXX XXXX, 1982
Hong Kong. 89 min.
In English (dubbed).

Our second feature is a companion-ish piece to the first, featuring much of the same cast but with amped-up choreography courtesy of the late Alan Chui.

Each year, during the seventh month of the lunar calendar, spirits of the dead are permitted to walk the Earth to seek out avenues to reincarnation. A young martial artist is visited upon by the ghost of his father, who claims he was killed by an evil wizard, setting our hero on a quest for revenge against the supernatural kung fu master. (Includes special guest appearance by Dracula!)


3:00 PM

XXX XXXX XXXXXX XX XXX XXXX XXXX
dir. XXXX XXX XXXX-XX, 1991
Hong Kong. 92 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

We jump forward to the early 90s and a radically different horror movie landscape. One colored as much by the self-referential humor of JASON LIVES and EVIL DEAD as it was the jiangshi template set by ENCOUNTERS and the MR. VAMPIRE franchise.

From the director of one of most face-melting wuxia spectacles ever made comes this mystical martial arts gore-fest with a hard Cat-III rating. When a professor (and future global superstar) and his class are attacked by a vicious monster, the professor escapes only find himself blamed for the death and dismemberment of his students. As the corpses pile up, he realizes he must take matters into his own hands to track down the monster’s sinister origins.

Practical gore effects, jaw-dropping wire-fu stunt work, and an equally jaw-dropping amount of nudity combine for what may be the first bona fide kung fu trash-horror masterpiece.


5:00 PM

XXXXXXXX XXXXXX
dir. XX XX, 1992
Hong Kong. 91 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

The star and main character of Hong Kong’s most beloved jiangshi series makes another John Munch-like foray into an entirely unrelated movie.

Western and Chinese vampire mythology collide in this story about a small-town Christian priest whose church is haunted by the evil vampire spirit of a priest who died there long ago. Together, he and a local Taoist priest must set aside their religious and cultural differences to stop the vampire from infecting the entire town.


7:00 PM

XXXXX XXXXXX
dir. XXX XXX-XXX, 1984
Hong Kong/Taiwan. 89 min.
In Mandarin with terrible English subtitles.

Our penultimate feature gets back to basics for a lean, mean piece of Taiwanese kung fu-horror mayhem.

An imperial bodyguard and a bounty hunter join forces to take down an evil Taoist mystic, well versed in an ancient and mysterious form of martial arts. They team up with a young boxer on her own quest for vengeance over the death of her father. Together, the three must use every skill at their disposal, human or demon, to defeat the wizard’s dark forces.


9:00 PM

XXX XXXX XXXXXX
dir. XXXXX XXXX, 1984
Hong Kong. 99 min.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

Our evening concludes with the crown jewel of our marathon: A late career masterpiece by a longtime industry titan.

A loose retelling of the tale of Faust, the film follows a young martial artist who journeys to the underworld where he sells his soul to the devil in exchange for demonic powers. He hopes to use his powers to save his friend and claim revenge for (you guessed it) the death of his father, but little does he know that with great power comes a great, insatiable thirst for blood.

Stellar choreography, superb practical effects, a host of familiar faces, and a healthy dose of experimentation make for a fitting culmination to one of the greatest, most prolific careers in Hong Kong film history. A criminally underseen must-watch for fans of horror, kung fu, jiangshi, wuxia, and everything in between.

ОСЕНЬ (FALL)

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ОСЕНЬ (FALL)
dir. Vadim Kostrov, 2022
109 mins. Russia.

GET TICKETS
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 5PM
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 10PM

SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 7:30PM – w Q+A!
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 5PM – w Q+A!

Therefore remove sorrow from your heart,
And put away evil from your flesh,
For childhood and youth are vanity.

Spectacle and UnionDocs partner again to observe the start of autumn with the second entry of KOSTROV’S SEASONS, a recurring series spotlighting Russian experimental documentarian Vadim Kostrov’s growing corpus of diaristic and meditative work. In the interim between last June’s introductory mini-retrospective and Kostrov’s stunning array of winter films later on, we are drawing special attention to FALL, one of the three completed works in the filmmaker’s seasons tetralogy and his last feature before leaving his home in protest of the invasion of Ukraine.

Straying from the beaming, youthful, and dialogue-driven conceits of SUMMER (2021), Kostrov’s FALL marks an ambivalent crossfade in tempo and tone for a return to Nizhny Tagil through the eyes of 10-year-old flaneur Vadik (reprised by Vova Karetin) as he wanders amongst the colossal scale of billowing smoke stacks, housing blocks, and humming sunsets. The patient exploration of Kostrov’s autobiographical stand-in eventually highlights the city’s historical contribution to Russia’s war machine. This realization and the absence of the previous entry’s supporting cast of characters suffuse FALL with a far more lonely and worrisome quality, paradoxically rendered in calm, sumptuous fashion by Kostrov’s ever-developing talent for composing enrapturing miniDV landscapes that are as celestial as they are lo-fi.

Presented in partnership with UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art. Special Thanks to Vadim Kostrov, Jenny Miller, and Mal de Mer Films.

 

 

OPEN DOOM CRESCENDO

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

GET TICKETS
SUNDAY, JULY 9 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, JULY 23 – 7:30PM

GET TICKETS
FRIDAY, JULY 28 – 7:30PM w Q+A (This event is $10.)

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.

“No one is making films like Terry Chiu, and his work deserves to be consumed by the world’s eyes, ears, and brain mush. It is criminal that his work has barely played anywhere. Where the hell is The Locarno Film Festival when you need them?”
– Justin Decloux, The Laser Blast Film Society / The Important Cinema Club

 

 

1871 (The Freelance Solidarity Project)

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1871
dir. Ken McMullen, 1990
100 mins. United Kingdom/France.
In English.GET TICKETS
SATURDAY, JULY 8 – 5 PM followed by discussion with Sara David (Writers’ Guild of America) and Chris Randle (Freelance Solidarity Project)
(This event is $10.)GET TICKETS
SUNDAY JULY 16 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY JULY 27 – 10 PM

Renoir the painter once told his son the director about the Paris Commune: “They were insane, but they had that little flame that never goes out.” Ken McMullen’s 1871 stages those extraordinary two months not as madness but as theater, a pageant that suspended capitalist existence. Med Hondo plays Karl Marx, whispering omens to the disgraced emperor; an actress sings “The Internationale” while government troops assemble in their seats. “They’re just a bunch of stupid fucking actors,” Timothy Spall’s amoral fop protests. “They get overexcited when they dress up.” History gets made at the prop department.

The Freelance Solidarity Project was founded in 2018 by digital media workers. Now a division of the National Writers Union, it campaigns alongside editorial staff and street vendors alike to raise wages for all. Following the first screening of 1871, writer Chris Randle, a member of FSP’s steering committee, will discuss Hollywood labor strikes with Writers Guild of America member Sara David.

 

RAGTAG & SHADES OF FILM NOIR

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Join us this summer as we celebrate the darkness of film noir featuring Giuseppe Boccassini’s Experimental decoupage alongside two genre classics.

RAGTAG
dir. Giuseppe Boccassini, 2022
Germany, France, Italy, 84min
In English.

GET TICKETS
SATURDAY JULY 22 – 7:30PM + Q&A
THURSDAY JULY 27 – 7:30PM +Q&A

“An atlas of film gestures and Pathosformel: the montage – better the disassembly – isolates moments from the narrative and separates bodies from events, opening up to the unthinkable and the invisible of film noir. Ragtag, thus, becomes an immense archive of the imaginary that, far from being sequential and historical, becomes intensive and organic: a film-experience beyond film as such.” – Federico Rossin, film historian.

RAGTAG is an expressionistic assemblage film following a chronological timeline mined from what French critics notoriously coined, film noir. The decoupage-based film accounts for 310 noir films, spanning from the early 1940s to the late 1950s while also including some foreign-made pictures that share an affinity with the genre. Boccassini’s experiment is as musical as it is daring; carefully assembled & labored on in a pulsing yet innovative way attuned to the delicateness of gestures, extreme close-ups, and the daring conceit of difference and repetition, recontextualizing the genre’s most memorable moments to enable a new way of seeing and experiencing.

THE CHASE
dir. Arthur Ripley, 1946
United States, 88min
In English.

GET TICKETS
MONDAY, JULY 3 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY JULY 21 – 10:00PM

Arthur Ripley’s THE CHASE is an eerie blend of noir aesthetics and psychological tension exploring the limits of moral ambiguity and the pursuit of justice. Starring Peter Lorre & Steve Cochran as a pair of sadistic sociopaths alongside Robert Cummings (DIAL M FOR MUDER, SABOTEUR) as the newly hired chauffeur, THE CHASE is a fascinating and dreamlike subversion of the genre acting as a fitting pair to the expressionistic RAGTGAG.

KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL
dir. Phil Karlson, 1952
United States, 99min
In English.

GET TICKETS
SATURDAY, JULY 1 – 5PM
SATURDAY JULY 15 – 3PM

Phil Karlson’s classic film noir is a gritty anxiety-induced journey through a city cloaked in secrets. Hard-boiled and stylish and often referenced as a pinnacle to the genre, Karlson’s masterwork is an innovative and influential take on the heist film and a fitting anxiety-ridden companion to Boccassini’s RAGTAG.

KILLING

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KILLING
(斬)
dir. Tsukamoto Shin’ya, 2018
80 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

GET TICKETS
FRIDAY JULY 7 – 10 PM 
SATURDAY JULY 22 – MIDNIGHT 
MONDAY JULY 24 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY JULY 26 – 10 PM

“If you can’t kill, your sword is useless.”

Spectacle invites you to cool off this summer with a special New York City engagement of KILLING, the most recent masterpiece by Japanese filmmaker Tsukamoto Shin’ya.

Set in the 19th century, KILLING concerns a wandering swordsman named Sawamura (played by the filmmaker) who recruits a young farmer named Tsuzuki (Sôsuke Ikematsu) for an anticipated trip to Edo, with intention to help topple the crumbling Tokugawa shogunate. Sawamura’s would-be disciple is eager to learn the ways of the ronin to the point of neglecting less-exciting chores on the farm, but finds himself paralyzed when a pack of roving outlaws impose themselves on his village. What follows is a dense meditation on the preventability (or inevitability) of violence in the moment of decision, described by Tsukamoto as a “scream” of a film in response to the state of the world.

Far less pulpy than Tsukamoto’s genre riffs A SNAKE IN JUNE or BULLET BALLET, KILLING juxtaposes the natural beauty of the Japanese countryside with the hideousness of human nature. Fans of Michael Mann’s action painting with lightweight digital cameras in MIAMI VICE and PUBLIC ENEMIES will find much to learn in the brief, unforgettable battle sequences choreographed by Tsukamoto – pointed rebuttals to the kind of gratuitous massacres of consequence-free death and violence that make up so much genre cinema today.

While KILLING enjoyed success on the festival circuit in 2018, the film never received a traditional theatrical run in the United States, playing only a handful of times in New York City (first at Japan Society, last fall at BAM as part of a full Tsukamoto retrospective.)

“KILLING’s few fight sequences have the same gnashing energy as Tsukamoto’s city-punk classics TETSUO: THE IRON MAN and TOKYO FIST, but deployed to more judicious ends: blood is drawn as a last resort, there’s no glory in felling your opponent, and Sawamura and Tsuzuki’s blades are so fine they appear almost translucent, ethereal, out of focus. Tsukamoto’s signature camera language gives tactile proportion to the older samurai’s swiftness with the blade, while his would-be student’s trembling inability to fight becomes a core—you could even say fatal—insufficiency, recalling the psychosexual mania of DUEL IN THE SUN or THE LEFT-HANDED GUN.” – Daryl Jade Williams, Cinema Scope

“It wouldn’t be a Tsukamoto film without entangled brutality and sexuality, frustrations taken out in furtive masturbation, physical assault as lust, and other attacks on the flesh. Handheld camerawork avoids the stuffiness plaguing most period pieces, pulling viewers out of history and into the story’s present-tense. The film gets literally darker with each slice of the sword, its emphasis of futility a long way from TETSUO’s full-blown nihilism. The film ends on a perfect note of horror asking, with a kill completed, what exactly died?” – Danielle Burgos, Screen Slate

DEADLY END

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SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS
FRIDAY, FRIDAY JULY 7 – 7:30PM + Remote Q&A with director Graeme Whifler!
(This event is $10.)

TICKETS HERE
WEDNESDAY JULY 12 – 10:00PM
FRIDAY JULY 21 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY JULY 25 – 10:00PM

 

DEADLY END (AKA NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH)
Dir. Graeme Whifler, 2005.
USA. 92 min.
In English.

 

Director Graeme Whifler, celebrated for his work with The Residents, DEVO, Sparks, and Oingo Boingo, is well-known for exploring unsettling and surreal concepts. More than a decade after co-writing the cult horror film Dr. Giggles with director Manny Coto, Whifler was compelled to revisit his original vision for the film, Mr. Giggles.

“Mr. Giggles bares only the vaguest similarity to the movie, Dr. Giggles. The character names and the notion of surgery are all that survived…”

Over a decade later, Whifler’s original concept was unleashed on the world as Deadly End, AKA Neighborhood Watch. Today, it is acknowledged as one of the most disturbing and sickening examples of underground horror cinema.

We are excited to host Graeme Whifler for a special remote Q&A at Spectacle this July, where he will delve into his creative process, his writing, and his legacy.

“Bob and Wendi Petersen thought they had found the perfect neighborhood on Wormwood Drive, but their new neighbor Adrien Trumbull has a dark secret. Despite his seemingly friendly demeanor, Adrien is deeply sick, with an obsession for self-mutilation and a love for poison. As Bob and Wendi accept Adrien’s gifts and friendship, they unknowingly open the door to a living nightmare. They soon discover that on Wormwood Drive, the night has eyes, and the neighbors are watching.”

Prefaced By:

SONGS FOR SWINGING LARVAE
Dir. Graeme Whifler, 1981.
USA. 6 min.

Part of a long line of music video collaborations between Ralph Records (home of The Residents) and Whifler, this short film for Renaldo & The Loaf was a sleeper hit on the late-nite MTV circuit before being quickly banned. See why for yourself in this eye-popping newly restored 16mm negative cut.

IT CAME FROM TAIWAN!

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Following the wildly successful runs of Korean creature features, SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI and PULGASARI, earlier this year, Spectacle Theater now sets course due South, across the East China Sea, to discover what cinematic monstrosities the island of Taiwan has in store.

Though much less prolific than the neighboring film industry in Hong Kong, Taiwanese cinema exploded onto the global scene in the early 1980s with the emergence of the New Taiwanese Cinema movement. This crop of ambitious and talented young filmmakers— including Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chen Kunhou, and Chang Yi— sought to use cinema as a means of speaking honestly and openly about the issues affecting post-industrial Taiwanese society, crafting realistic and socially-relevant stories that resonated deeply with modern audiences.

But as Taoist philosophy suggests, just as every light has its dark and as every up has its down, for every TAIPEI STORY or CITY OF SADNESS, there must be a movie about a centuries-old zombie-fighting herbal deity or a semi-feral superpowered female ninja. And since our love of East Asian prestige cinema is only outmatched by our love of homegrown fantasy-horror schlock, Spectacle Theater is thrilled to present IT CAME FROM TAIWAN!, featuring two completely deranged, creature-heavy cuts from the stranger side of Taiwanese cinema.

WOLF DEVIL WOMAN
(雪山狼女)
Dir. Pearl Chang Ling, 1982
Taiwan. 85 min. In Mandarin with English subtitles.

GET TICKETS
WEDNESDAY, JULY 5 – 10PM
THURSDAY JULY 13 – 10:00PM 
SUNDAY JULY 16 – 5PM

After her parents are slaughtered by the villainous Red Devil, a young girl is rescued from certain death and raised by the legendary White Wolf of a Thousand Years deep in the snowy wilderness. Twenty years later, now more monster than man, she must learn to harness her ninja-like animal instincts to take down the Red Devil and reclaim her humanity in the process.

The inimitable Pearl Chang pulled quadruple duty as director, writer, producer, and star of this loose adaptation of Baifa Monu Zhuan (白髮魔女傳) aka Romance of the White-Haired Maiden. Chang pulled no punches for her debut feature, mashing together hopping vampires, gorilla ninjas, wire fu stunt work, and voodoo magic effects in this psychedelic masterpiece of lupine lunacy.

Content warning: This film contains brief depictions of animal cruelty.

GINSENG KING aka THREE-HEAD MONSTER
(三頭魔王)
Dir. Wang Chu-chin, 1988
Taiwan. 86 min. In Mandarin with English subtitles.

GET TICKETS
FRIDAY, JULY 7 – 5PM
MONDAY JULY 10 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, JULY 14 – 10PM
TUESDAY, JULY 25 – 7:30PM

Cynthia Khan (IN THE LINE OF DUTY series) stars in this tale of a young boy who encounters a thousand-year-old anthropomorphic ginseng root known as the Ginseng King. The herbal deity is highly sought after for its legendary healing abilities— rumored to be powerful enough to even raise the dead— putting the boy at odds with the hordes of demons, wizards, hopping vampires, and zombies of the Nazi persuasion, all seeking to capture the knobby necromancer for their own gain.

The film is a truly one-of-a kind work: A family-friendly, fairytale-adjacent kaiju flick that features some of the most batshit character design ever put to film. The Ginseng King’s look is worth the price of admission alone, with its bulging eyes and mane of roots that falls somewhere between the thing hanging out behind the Winkie’s dumpster and a partially melted wax statue of Marty Feldman. Needs to be seen to be believed

ARANDA/ABRIL: CRIMES OF PASSION

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Titans of Spanish cinema director Vicente Aranda and actress Victoria Abril made 13 films together over the course of 40 years. This summer, Spectacle presents two of their steamiest noirs, Amantes and Intruso.

Both based on true crimes, Amantes and Intruso explore a frequent theme in the director’s work: the destructive potential of passion. Cool exteriors conceal seething desire. Repression breeds obsession. Obsession leads to death in two stories of doomed love triangles.

AMANTES
(Lovers)
Dir. Vicente Aranda, 1991
Spain. 101 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles

GET TICKETS
SATURDAY, JULY 15 – 5:00PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 19 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, JULY 23 – 5:00PM

The year is 1955 and Paco (Jorge Sanz), a young man from a small town, moves to Madrid after being released from military service. While looking for work with the aim of marrying his girlfriend Trini (Maribel Verdú), he takes lodgings in the house of a widow (Victoria Abril), with whom he begins a torrid affair. Fueled by passion, obsession and greed, Paco and Luisa devise a plan to remove Trini from the picture.

Based on a true crime, Aranda sets the film in 1950s Francoist Spain, where repression, political and personal, is the order of the day. For her role as Luisa, the diabolical femme fatale at the center of Amantes, Victoria Abril would win a Golden Bear award for Best Actress in Berlin. The film builds steadily to its unavoidable finale, a heartbreaking and haunting scene of both tragedy and lyrical beauty, as the doomed love triangle breaks under the soft falling of Burgos snow.

“After all the elevated blood pressures regarding Basic Instinct and its allegedly graphic bisexual assignations, it’s a pleasure to report that Vicente Aranda’s Lovers, a 1991 movie from Spain, has a more palpable sexual charge than Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas could ever manage, is engrossing in a way the American film was not, and – crowning its achievement – is beautifully acted by one brilliant actress, Victoria Abril, and two excellent supporting performers, Jorge Sanz and Maribel Verdu.” -Rafael Navarro, Miami New Times, April 1992

“Vicente Aranda blatantly plays up the virgin/whore dichotomy between the two female characters but the women give nuanced performances that suggest undercurrents of complexity… Luisa (Abril) is a femme fatale of the old school and Abril throws herself wholeheartedly into the bad girl role in a performance that frequently segues between sensuality and a tightly coiled fury (often within the same sex scene).”  -Rebecca Naughton, Eye for Film

INTRUSO
(Intruder)
Dir. Vicente Aranda, 1993
Spain. 85 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles

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Luisa (Victoria Abril) spots her ex-husband, Angel (Arias), wandering about the city in complete destitution. She takes him into her house, where she lives with her present husband, Ramiro (Antonio Valero), a doctor, and two small children. Once ensconced in the house, the terminally ill Angel decides to wreak vengeance on Ramiro by reclaiming his ex-wife. -Variety

An underseen follow up to Amantes, Aranda returns to similar thematic and narrative territory with Intruso, a story of a woman torn between two husbands, in the gray and rainy setting of contemporary Santander. The cold winter light penetrates the family’s domestic enclave, and Director of Photography José Luis Alcaine renders the most intimate and intense interior scenes with steely brilliance and deep shadows. Abril is captivating again. Less a master manipulator and ace seductress than in Amantes, here she is the one possessed and obsessed, swept up in a past love re-emerged, in buried feelings reanimated, her performance brims over with desire, escaping her in tears and whispers.

“The twisted plotline highlights a sicko possessive love that makes one squirm, but not from anything that’s edifying. It’s just a squirmy pic.” – Dennis Schwartz, Dennis Schwartz Movies Reviews

“If this movie had been directed by Lars Von Trier, it would now be one of the jewels in the crown of his early filmography, but no, it is directed by an absolutely captivating, uncomfortable, risk-taking and sinister Vicente Aranda.” -Alex Caballero, Letterboxd