CRITICAL FAILURE: ROLE-PLAYING HORROR

Posted on by Zach Fleming

Remember when rolling a twenty-sided die and eating pizza with your pals in your mom’s basement was literally perceived as performing witchcraft and ritual sacrifice, or at least worthy of a wedgie from your classmates? Tabletop role-playing games—and the Hasbro-owned DUNGEONS & DRAGONS more specifically—have reemerged over the last decade into a multi-billion dollar industry with the largest number of players the hobby has ever witnessed along with a seemingly endless stream of podcasts, video games, films, shows, and enclosure of the creative commons to cash in.
With role-playing experiencing a much deserved embrace among millions of people as a unique form of community and creativity, as corporate exploitation simultaneously riddles it hollow with meaningless products and online services, it’s hard to fathom a time when D&D was effectively culturally outlawed during a wave of evangelical moral panic that reached its heights in the mid-80’s and stained its reputation for generations.
In an urgent attempt to encourage that role-playing become evil again (i.e., a child-endangering, pornography-promoting, demonic cult practice), and to rally against this consumerist holiday season, Spectacle presents four D&D-adjacent horror-fantasy films from around the globe (or at least from Canada, Michigan, Florida and Chile) that traverse the years of the Satanic Panic. Featuring chopped up geeks, vampire freaks, and a role-player from beyond the grave!

KNIGHT CHILLS
dir. Katherine Hicks, 2001
USA. 82 min.
In English.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17 – 10 PM

ADVANCE TICKETS

Role-playing with a vengeance

John is an avid role-player. He has feelings for fellow RPer Brooke. But when Brooke makes it clear the feelings are far from mutual, John, in despair, takes his own life. In the wake of this, his friends and fellow gamers are stalked by a mysterious black knight.

One of the all too rare SOV features directed by a woman, KNIGHT CHILLS is a solidly crafted supernatural slasher (not to mention a Christmas movie!), featuring one of the more convincing losers to ever grace the screen.

Its full of lovely details that DnD players will appreciate the hell out of, some of the most useless cops in cinema history (redundant, I know) and ingenious low budget effects, KNIGHT CHILLS is due for a reappraisal.

Screening from a new remaster from the original SVHS master tapes.

 


ETERNAL BLOOD aka SANGRE ETERNA
dir. Jorge Olguin, 2002
Chile. 107 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 5 PM
MONDAY, DECEMBER 9 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 10 PM

ADVANCE TICKETS

It’s the Essence of Life…and Death.

Carmila is introduced by ‘M’ to a sinister role-playing game called “Eternal Blood”. Once settled in an abandoned house, the group meets Dahmer, a young man who practices vampirism rites and who begins to influence young people, or perhaps… turn them into vampires.

Goth teens in Chile play a vampire themed role-playing game that starts to bleed (hehe) into real life. Or does it? The only film of the series to include the internet – feels like a snapshot of a very specific time in early-internet-end-of-mall-goth culture.


SKULLDUGGERY
dir. Ota Richter, 1983
Canada. 95 min.
In English.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, DECEMBER 9 -10 PM
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21 – 5 PM

ADVANCE TICKETS

It started as a game… until death started playing!

Adam is cursed: one of his ancestors played a game and fell victim to a sorcerer or possibly Satan. The curse manifests through Adam and the game, making him attend a strange amateur theater where immensely talentless people try to do farce and a janitor wanders around with a game of Tic-Tac-Toe on his back.

The oldest, and potentially the most bizarre of the series – features an incredible original song, a really strange sense of humor and pacing, some uncannily creepy moments, periodic cutaways to someone finishing the easiest puzzle to ever exist, and a horrendous puppet – not to mention some of the worst in local theater that Canada has to offer.

Also one of those movies where everyone inexplicably wants to fuck the bland pro(an)tagonist. An all around blast!

 


WAY BAD STONE
dir. Archie Waugh, 1991
USA. 84 min.
In English.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13 – MIDNIGHT
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20 – 5 PM

ADVANCE TICKETS

39 Gruesome Deaths!

A band of adventurers steals an enchanted stone, and earns a wizard’s desperate revenge. The wizard must summon all his old fighting comrades to get the artifact back – before its evil dooms their world.

Shot on video in Florida, featuring a cast of Renaissance Faire performers who the film was specifically written for, clearly thrilled able to flex their stunt skills while spilling as much blood and guts as possible – also features a non-zero number of actual swords and weaponry used in fight scenes – not to mention a killer theme song.

A shockingly cohesive and well wrought fantasy action mini-epic that the director affectionately referred to as a “home video that got out of hand”.

Screening from a new remaster courtesy of BLEEDING SKULL.