Featuring films withdrawn from NYFF, Berlinale, & IDFA in solidarity with Palestine.

10$+ Suggested donations. Proceeds will go directly to the filmmakers & direct aid to Gazans.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 1 – 7:30PM – Program 1 – WITHDRAWN FROM IDFA  

ANIMALIA PARADOXA
Dir. Niles Atallah, 2024.
Chile. 80 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

A tale of metamorphisis of a post-apocalyptic being. In this eclectic fantasy of discarded dreams, echoes of an imaginary sea guide this amphibious creature towards a new dawn.

Prefaced by the NYC premiere of Palestinian filmmaker Rosalind Nashashibi’s NYFF film, THE INVISIBLE WORM.

THE INVISIBLE WORM
Dir. Rosalind Nashashibi, 2024.
United Kingdom, 17min.
In Arabic with English Subtitles

Benjamin Britten’s elegiac musical setting of William Blake’s “The Sick Rose” supplies the title of Rosalind Nashashibi’s video, which unfolds as an elliptical cross-media dialogue between the multimedia artist Elena Narbutaitė, the sculptures of Marie Lund, and Nashashibi’s own paintings and camera. What emerges is a set of funny and deep reflections on artist-types and the contexts and meanings of art-making—as a place to breathe and wonder, or a form of wasting time. “Don’t take it all too seriously.”

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 9 – 7:30PM – Program 2 – SHOVEL OR SPADE: WITHDRAWN SHORTS

MEHDI AMEL IN GAZA
Dir. Mary Jirmanus Saba, 2024.
Palestine. 14 min.
In Arabic with English subtitles.

THE SUN IS MISSING
Dir. Advik Beni, 2022.
South Africa. 8 min.

WHEN LIGHT IS DISPLACED
Dir. Zaina Bseiso, 2021.
Palestine. 7 min.
In Arabic with English subtitles.

LET’S GO TO THE MINES
Dir. Advik Beni, 2022.
South Africa. 3 min.

NEWSREEL 242 – SUNNY RAILWAYS
Dir. Nika Autor, 2024.
Slovenia. 31 min.
In Slovene with English subtitles.

Another year, another collection of the best of under-seen horror in the tri-state area.

Join us for SPECTOBER 2024!

---

BLACK MAGIC RITES
dir. Renato Polselli, 1973
Italy. 98 min.
In Italian with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1 – 10PM
MONDAY, OCTOBER 14 – 10PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 10PM

TICKETS

A group of vampires keep the body of a witch in a castle cellar. They require virgin blood to resurrect her. A party of people arrive and things kick off.

A psychedelic-erotic-horror masterpiece, BLACK MAGIC RITES is hypnotic and transportive in its vibes-first visuals and storytelling.

Starring Mickey Hargitay and Rita Calderoni (A Quiet Place in the Country) and featuring a kaleidoscopic grab bag of 70’s-and-the-occult-isms (witches, vampires, Satanists, flashing lights, crash zooms, psychedelic soundtrack) – this is a midnight flick for the arthouse sickos, presented in an all-new 4k restoration from the original negative.

Viewers should be warned it also features the (unfortunately common and very Italian) depiction of sexual-asssault-turned-”consensual”-sex-scenes, giving a glimpse into the truly vile thoughts behind the eyes of the film’s overtly male gaze.

WARNING: BRIEF COLORED STROBE EFFECTS

---

FATAL IMAGES
dir. Dennis Devine, 1989
USA. 99 min.
In English

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5 – MIDNIGHT
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13 – 5PM
MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 10PM

TICKETS

A crazy serial killer kills himself by sealing his soul into his camera. Years later, a woman buys the camera, and everyone she photographs begins being tracked down and killed by the killers spirit.

A regional SOV gem that does exactly what the synopsis says and then some.

From the first awkwardly ADR’d moments of tape fuzz, there’s something cozy about this bizarre supernatural slasher from the director of Dead Girls (and an impressively long list of mid-to-late-oughts straight to streaming garbage horror films with fantastic titles like Ouija Nazi and Curse of the Pirate Dead )

Come for the beige interiors and home locations dressed as ‘offices’ and ‘police stations’, stay for the alien performances and surprisingly gnarly kills.

Screening courtesy of Visual Vengeance.

---

THE LAST GATEWAY
dir. Demian Rugna, 2006
Argentina. 105 min.
In English.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13 – 7:30PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 – 10PM

TICKETS

Michael and Marianne recently married and moved into their new home, however they have come to discover that their peaceful lives are about to be turned upside down when Michael starts suffering from severe stomach pains. They will soon discover that the pain comes from a miscalculation made by Victor, a demonologist who has just opened a portal to hell in MIchael’s stomach.

Now both Michael and Marianne have to run from dangerous people who are after this gate while facing horrific creatures that are escaping from the portal that Michael carries in his body. They will soon arrive to a deserted town, which will be plagued with monsters and death. Will Michael find a way out before it is too late?

Demian Rugna’s (WHEN EVIL LURKS) second feature throws everything at the wall, and it is genuinely shocking how much sticks once you get on its wavelength (it opens with some deeply hilarious English dubbing, and there’s a mix of accented English and awful dub applied to the whole thing in a way that feels deeply Italian).

There is a lot of plot to track, as evidenced by the convoluted synopsis above, but it pays off that plotting with ingeniously designed and rendered creature effects, all practical and covered in goop – not to mention that thick sense of impending doom his later work is steeped in.

Fans of Fulci classics like CITY OF THE DEAD, take note – this is for you!

---

MR. ICE CREAM MAN
dir. Mack Hail, 1996
USA. 65 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 3PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 5PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 – MIDNIGHT

TICKETS

Children are going missing in a suburban town. There’s a creepy guy driving an ice cream truck. Related?

Deeply uncanny and unsettling, MR ICE CREAM MAN feels like a direct transmission from an alien dimension, or like a deeply cursed episode of a lost Nickelodeon show (or even a lost segment from I SAW THE TV GLOW’s fictional cult-kids-show).

Not to be confused with THE ICE CREAM MAN, this rarity is sure to make you squirm.

“Like a lost episode of Twin Peaks: The Return” – Matt Lynch via Letterboxd

---

LAS NUEVE CARAS DEL MIEDO
dir. Christian Gonzalez, 1995
Mexico. 90 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6 – 5PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 10PM

TICKETS

A TV crew alongside a medium, a friar and a killer with regrets spend the night inside a haunted hotel where a guy murdered prostitutes in the 1950’s. Soon they discover the place is really haunted, the friar is possessed by an evil force beginning a new massacre.

Probably the nastiest offering of this year’s Spectober lineup, LAS NUEVE CARAS DEL MIEDO is sorely underseen and ahead of its time stylistically – blending “true-crime” storytelling with a supernatural slasher (some online have compared it to a cross between GHOSTWATCH (1992) and an episode of the X-files).

Featuring a cast of mostly reprehensible people dying in increasingly gnarly ways, this movie has a surprising amount of bile. Viewers be warned!

---

TILL DEATH DO WE SCARE
(小生怕怕)
Dir. Lau Kar-wing, 1982
Hong Kong. 91 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 7:30PM
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17 – 10PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 7:30PM

TICKETS

Irene (Olivia Cheng) is chronically unlucky in love, having already lost three husbands to various Rube Goldberg-esque wedding day mishaps while still in her youth. Worried that she may be slipping into a suicidal depression– which in turn would mean there would be no one left to pray for or provide offerings to them– the ghosts of her three husbands assume the role of supernatural matchmaker, conspiring to set her up with the bumbling host of a local radio horror show (Alan Tam) while trying to temper their own jealousies.

TILL DEATH DO WE SCARE was an early release by Raymond Wong, Karl Maka, and Dean Shek’s newly-formed Cinema City production company, boasting a script from future hesuipian heavyweight Clifton Ko (IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD), and directed by martial arts icon Lau Kar-wing (ODD COUPLE). Yet despite all the local talent involved in its production, the most curious credit found on this slapstick/rom-com/action/horror hybrid comes courtesy of special effects maestro, Tom Savini. As the story goes, Savini traveled to Hong Kong with the film’s original VFX artist to assist with the production, inadvertently resulting in the firing of the original artist and the hiring of Savini, for what turned out to be one of the more chaotic productions with which he’d been involved.

“It was a very frantic shoot, because, in order to start a fog in a scene, they’d start a fire in a wastebasket, put a lid on it, and take the lid off when they wanted to fill the room with smoke. […] It was great fun improvising those effects.”
– Tom Savini

Special thanks to Far East Flix.

Over the past few years, Spectacle has plumbed the depths of the disgusting effects, dubious morals, and devil fetuses of Hong Kong “Category III” cinema– the HK film industry’s rough equivalent to the American “X” rating labeling extreme content. This Spectober, we return to the sticky side with this trio of works featuring those most bloodthirsty, bite-prone, garlic-phobic, and godless of horror villains: Cats!

Cats have long played a role in Chinese mythology and horror lore, commonly depicted as xianli (仙狸 )– shape-shifting demons of divine or extraterrestrial original, trapped in our realm and intent on sucking the spirits out of humans. Though not as much a staple of Hong Kong cinemas as their hopping vampire and haunted house counterparts, the regional horror boom of the 1980s and 90s still found plenty of room for xianli stories replete with blood, guts, and a dose of kitty kung fu, truly putting the “cat” in “Category III”.

EVIL CAT
(凶貓)
Dir. Dennis Yu Wan-kwong, 1987
Hong Kong. 91 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 10PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 10PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 10PM

TICKETS

For generations the Cheung clan has protected the world from a demonic cat with nine lives who returns every 50 years to feed on unsuspecting souls. Now the last of his bloodline, the burden falls on the aging kung fu sorcerer, Master Cheung (Lau Kar-leung), to enter into final battle with the demon and claim its last life, before a terminal illness claims his.

In one of the wilder collaborations in HK film history, horror and New Wave icon Dennis Yu (THE BEASTS) brings to life one of the Wong Jing-iest of ridiculous 80s Wong Jing scripts, with the legendary Lau Kar-leung in tow as star and choreographer. The result is an incredible convergence of its creators’ sensibilities, with its giallo-esque horror sequences blending seamlessly with superb wirework action and off-the-charts zaniness.

DEVIL CAT
(貓變)
Dir. Chow Cheung, 1991
Taiwan. 86 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 – 5PM
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 10PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18 – MIDNIGHT

TICKETS

The supernatural, shapeshifting Queen of Cats (Yukari Oshima) is engaged in a centuries-long war with the Dog King and his legion of bandits. After sustaining injuries during their latest battle, the Queen is nursed back to health by a kindly young man and his girlfriend, only for them to become the Dog King’s newest targets. The Queen must now serve as protector to them and a host of other locals lest her conflict with the King spill over into our realm.

Not to be confused with Kenny Ha’s earlier film of the same name, Chow Cheung’s DEVIL CAT features a hodgepodge of different story ideas united by future martial arts legend Yukari Oshima’s presence as a crime fighting cat spirit. A heavy synth score, shimmery special effects, and some solid gore make this the ultimate wish fulfillment fantasy for vengeance-minded felines, so be careful not to show this one to yours.

THE CAT
(衛斯理之老貓)
Dir. Lam Nai-choi, 1992
Hong Kong. 84 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9 – 10PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 5PM

TICKETS

A trio of shapeshifting extraterrestrials– one in the form of an old man, one a young woman, and one (of course) a cat– team up with adventure novelist Wisely to defeat an alien terror known as the Star Killer with the power to absorb and re-animate its human victims.

You’ll have to forgive us for throwing in a selection that’s technically only rated Category IIB, but how could we not include the mother of all Hong Kong cat movies. Loosely adapted from one of Shaw scribe Ni Kuang’s Wisely novels, THE CAT sees Lam Nai-choi (in his final feature, no less) one-up the gonzo absurdity that put him on the map with features like THE SEVENTH CURSE, THE GHOST SNATCHERS, and STORY OF RICKY. Lam’s swan song is a non-stop barrage of ludicrous sci-fi ideas, Lovecraftian creature designs, and latex gore, featuring endless gunfights, dogfights, catfights, a dog-and-cat fight, and enough pyrotechnics to put Hollywood to shame.

This October Spectacle presents Argentina’s first-ever zombie movie PLAGA ZOMBIE and its sequel PLAGA ZOMBIE: ZONA MUTANTE.

For years, friends Pablo Parés, Hernán Sáez, Berta Muniz, and Walter Cornás had been making short films on the weekends with a video camera that Parés won at a raffle. In 1996, before they were 20, the four friends decided to make their first feature film. Armed with a budget of $450, a horde of friends, and countless weekends, the friends created Argentina’s first zombie movie, PLAGA ZOMBIE (1997).

After spending all their money creating the movie, they didn’t have funds left for distribution. However, they discovered they could earn $100 per person by presenting a case on the reality show FORUM (1985 – ), similar to JUDGE JUDY(1992 – ). The friends presented two fake cases, related to the filming of PLAGA ZOMBIE and received their $400, which they made VHS copies of PLAGA ZOMBIE with and self-distributed.

Due to the relentless distribution efforts of the friends, the movie gained a cult following in Argentina. As a result, they decided to make a sequel called PLAGA ZOMBIE: ZONA MUTANTE in 2001 and completed the trilogy in 2013 with PLAGA ZOMBIE: ZONA MUTANTE – REVOLUCIÓN TÓXICA.

PLAGA ZOMBIE eventually became open source, allowing other creators to continue the legacy, this resulted in the creation of comic books, animated shows, action figures, and much more. In 2021, director Garry Medeiros released an American remake/spinoff/sequel titled PLAGA ZOMBIE – AMERICAN INVASION (2021), which featured cameos from the original creators Pablo Parés, Hernán Sáez, and Berta Muniz.

PLAGA ZOMBIE (ZOMBIE PLAGUE)
dir. Pablo Parés and Hernán Sáez, 1997.
Argentina. 71 mins.
In Spanish with English Subs.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12 – 10PM
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 – 7:30PM

TICKETS

An alien race aims to exterminate humanity by transforming a person into a zombie. It’s up to computer nerd Max Giggs, medical student Bill Johnson, and pro-wrestler John West to stop them.

Pablo Parés, Hernán Sáez, Berta Muñiz, and Walter Cornás were heavily influenced by Peter Jackson’s early films BAD TASTE(1987) and BRAINDEAD (1992), as well as Sam Raimi’s THE EVIL DEAD series (1980-1992). The friends set out to create a film in the same vein, with over-the-top practical effects, an insane storyline, and nonstop action. The outcome is a film that could easily fit into the early filmography of either of their idols.

PLAGA ZOMBIE: ZONA MUTANTE (ZOMBIE PLAGUE: MUTANT ZONE)
dir. Pablo Parés and Hernán Sáez, 2001.
Argentina. 99 mins.
In Spanish with English Subs.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 – 10PM
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 – 10PM

TICKETS

The Argentine government is collaborating with the aliens, offering protection from the virus in exchange. Survivors Bill Johnson, John West, and Max Giggs are in line for execution but are released back into the zombie-infested town instead.

Like all great zombie sequels, PLAGA ZOMBIE: ZONA MUTANTE significantly expands the universe of the original film. While the first movie was predominantly set in a house, the sequel depicts the zombie outbreak in the surrounding town. The film had a budget of $3000 and involved over 180 extras. It took them nearly four years to complete the production, eventually being picked up by Fangoria and distributed internationally.

Similar to the evolution of THE EVIL DEAD series, PLAGA ZOMBIE: ZONA MUTANTE leans heavily into the comedy elements that the previous film touched upon. With an increased budget and more experience, an explosion of practical effects comes to life, painstakingly created by Cornás and Parés, who usually stayed up until 4 am the night before filming to perfect them. The resulting effort is a movie that could rival the scale of some Hollywood zombie blockbusters but with way more heart.

LEGEND OF THE SHADOWY NINJA: THE NINJA DRAGON
(空想科学任侠伝 極道忍者ドス竜)
Dir. Go Nagai, 1990
Japan. 70 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 – 10PM
THURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 – 10PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – 5PM

TICKETS

The secretive realm of the world’s deadliest ninja warriors is thrown into chaos as, one by one, ninja clan leaders are brutally assassinated by a supernatural assailant. Fearing for her safety, a yakuza princess and heir to a ninja bloodline summons three “Ninja Defenders” to protect her from this hidden enemy whose origins are far stranger than any of them could fathom.

The only live-action film directed by manga legend Go Nagai (DEVILMAN, CUTIE HONEY) is a little-seen DTV gem that packs a hell of a lot of ideas into 70 minutes. Ninjas, demons, yakuza, zombies, aliens, martial artists, and joshi wrestlers collide head on in an infectiously confounding byproduct of the 1980s “ninja craze” that delivers big on the action and special effects in spite of its dirt-cheap appearance.

“What is the legend of the shadowy ninja? Who or what is the ninja dragon? This movie offers no answers to these questions, but it does have a scene where a man tears the skin off another man’s face and licks the bloody exposed muscle and tissue, and it stops nearly dead in its tracks for a wrestling match between a [spoiler redacted] villainess and a ninja lady.” – Laird Jimenez, via Letterboxd