A FOCUS ON VOLKER SPENGLER

A FOCUS ON VOLKER SPENGLER

Posted on by David Williams

On February 8th, 2020, the beloved and highly esteemed German actor Volker Spengler passed away, just eight days before his 81st birthday. Spengler not only left behind a mammoth legacy, including works with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Christoph Schlingensief, and Ulrike Ottinger, but also touched the lives of countless artists, musicians, and actors around him.

Please join us this November at Spectacle for the NYC premiere of HIGHFALUTIN, an intimate documentary directed by Hans Broich, focusing on stories from those around Spengler who knew and loved him best. Included in FOCUS are two transgressive post-reunification films from the late artist Christoph Schlingensief that showcase Volker: THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE 120 DAYS OF BOTTROP.

Special thanks to SIXPACKFILM and FILMGALERIE 451.

HIGHFALUTIN
Dir. Hans Broich, 2021
Austria & Germany. 96 min.
German with English Subtitles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 8 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – 7:30 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Told in collage of voices around a certain dinner table in Berlin’s Diener Tattersall, a series of collaborators join a discussion on the actor Volker Spengler. Detailing many anecdotes: large and small, adoring and frustrated. HIGHFALUTIN soon becomes as much an examination of those speaking as it is the one being spoken about.

THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE
Dir. Christoph Schlingensief, 1990
Germany. 63 min.
German with English Subtitles.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 5 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

In 1990, a group of East Germans cross the border to visit the West. But their journey takes a turn for the wurst when they encounter a psychopathic cannibal family who plans to turn them into sausages. Filmed shortly after German reunification, THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE combines B-Movie horror industrial spectacle with experimental political satire. This is the film that put Christoph Schlingensief on the map.

 

 

THE 120 DAYS OF BOTTROP
Dir. Christoph Schlingensief, 1997
Germany. 60 min.
German with English Subtitles.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 10 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27 – 10 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

A who’s-who of actors congregate together to create the last great piece of New German Film – A remake of the 1973 movie SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM. An endlessly referential piece of homage cinema disguised as a putrid Wateresque trash opus. Fassbinder this ain’t.

 

ANIME NO GOGO

Posted on by David Williams

ANIME NO GOGO
A bi-monthly, mystery Anime and OVA matinee.
SATURDAYS, 3 PM

Your Saturday – Elevated!

The memories of sleeping in on Saturday and eating cereal in your pajamas in front of the screen no longer need to live in the past! Spectacle is happy to indulge you with hand-picked mystery matinees of only the best OVA and Films from the Golden Age of Anime. Every other Saturday at 3 PM. Be sure to come comfy and bring your bowl, whatever that means to you!

DECADES OF DEBRIS (fka BENJI’S WORLD)

Posted on by spectacletheater
This fall, Spectacle embarks on a mission nearly ten years in the making: honoring the opinions of one Benjamin Pequet, the mild-mannered Belgian you may have seen sitting between two craft IPAs at your favorite (or least-favorite) screening. Of course Benjamin is not the only Spectacle diehard, but his years of loyal service and stubborn refusal to cross the patron-volunteer threshold have made him a kind of arbiter of taste (or human Richter scale) for Spectacle programming.

After months of feverish discussion with Benjamin, we’re thrilled to kick off this monthly carte blanche series with a special one-night Friday the 13th event honoring the enigmatic Twitch streamer and bricolage-r of the audiovisual unknown who calls himself FORGOTTEN_VCR.

Then, later in October, join Benjamin for two films by Soda Kazuhiro, building off of our 2019 retrospective: his breakout 2008 documentary MENTAL, followed by the little-screened sequel documentary ZERO. Both shows will be followed by a remote Q+A with Soda and his producer Kashiwagi Kiyoko, guided if not moderated by Benjamin Pequet.

AN EVENING WITH FORGOTTEN_VCR

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13 – 7:30PM and 10PM followed by remote Q+A with FORGOTTEN_VCR
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

GET TICKETS HERE!

(These events are $10.)
Stay inside. Watch TV. 
 
The mysterious St. Louis, MO-based university professor FORGOTTEN_VCR (who prefers to just go by “VCR”) came to Benjamin Pequet’s attention during the COVID-19 lockdowns of spring/summer 2020, when he began showcasing original music videos (which cut an entire feature film down to fit a specific song) on his Twich stream, as well as homemade mixtapes drawing from abandoned VHSes. Here’s the thing: VCR edits his work entirely on VCR. Here’s how he explained it to PC Gamer in 2020: “When I have this VCR and you hear it and see the little icon that says ‘play’ and ‘stop’ and all that, it immediately makes it feel like ‘I have to be here. This is on a tape.’ It’s part of the look of the stream.”

Ninja cinema, fossilized technology, toy commercials, moment of impossible promise from the dawn of the computer age: it’s all here. For ONE NIGHT ONLY, join Benjamin on a brain-breaking odyssey into this misunderstood and much-neglected analog cosmos that is FORGOTTEN_VCR.

MENTAL
(精神)
dir. Soda Kazuhiro, production associate Kashiwagi Kiyoko . 2008.
135 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 5 PM with Soda Kazuhiro and Kashiwagi Kiyoko for remote Q+A

ONE NIGHT ONLY!

(This event is $10.)

GET TICKETS HERE!

After being diagnosed with “burnout” at the end of too many grueling work weeks, Soda became fascinated by alternative means of mental health treatment. MENTAL is a portrait of an outpatient psychiatric clinic called Chorale Okayama, founded by one Dr. Masatomo Yamamoto – the protagonist of the film, an elderly doctor working for essentially nothing. Chorale Okayama serves people with incurable mental disorders, who Yamamoto essentially believes can be nevertheless helped by a sympathetic community of listeners.Soda structured MENTAL so that viewers would will feel like they’re stepping into the clinic just like he did for the first time, unaware of what he would find. It’s not the easiest film in his body of work to watch but is nevertheless an act of courage, looking beyond what the filmmaker calls “the invisible curtain” that separates the well from the unwell (a questionable dichotomy to begin with.) As Soda speaks with Yamamoto’s patients about their lives, struggles, hallucinations and dreams, MENTAL becomes an extraordinary cross-examination of taboo in Japan, to say nothing of the accumulated costs of trauma and, finally, the documentary form’s inherent potential for compassion.

 

ZERO
(精神0)

dir. Soda Kazuhiro, production associate Kashiwagi Kiyoko. 2019.
128 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 8PM followed by remote Q+A with Soda Kazuhiro and Kashiwagi Kiyoko
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
This event is $10.

GET TICKETS HERE!

At the age of 82, Dr. Yamamoto  is suddenly retiring from the clinical field, causing a lot of anxiety for many of his patients who have been relying on him as their lifeline for many years. Now he needs to spend time to care for his wife Yoshiko. In early spring, Dr. Yamamoto and Yoshiko embark on a new life, facing challenges they never faced before.

“Shooting Dr. Yamamoto, a self-described workaholic, I immediately felt that for him, mental healthcare was his life. His work defined who Masatomo Yamamoto was. It gave him a reason to live. And he was about to let that go. When Yamamoto becomes just a human being without a title or role as a doctor, how will he live? Being a workaholic myself, I was really curious. The path he is about to take is the one I will need to take one day. It is actually a universal path that many people must experience some day.

While I was shooting Yamamoto with such a point of view, another protagonist emerged: Yoshiko Yamamoto, his wife. The film turned out to be about the couple rather than the doctor. As a result, I unexpectedly made a film about ‘pure love.'” – Kazuhiro Soda

AN EVENING WITH LAURA CITARELLA

Posted on by Zach Fleming

Continuing our ongoing showcase of the work of Argentine film collective El Pampero Cine, we’re happy to host producer and filmmaker Laura Citarella in a special presentation of OSTENDE and TRENQUE LAUQUEN. Both starring Laura Paredes as a stranger in a small town in the Buenos Aires Province who finds herself embroiled in an ever-expanding web of mysteries, the two films are playful mirrors of each other that tease out new mysteries and resonances between themselves when seen together.

 

TRENQUE LAUQUEN
Dir. Laura Citarella, 2022
Argentina, 260 Minutes
In Spanish with English Subtitles

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7 – 5 PM – In person Q&A with Laura Citarella after the screening

GET TICKETS HERE!

One of the year’s best and most underappreciated films, Laura Citarella’s TRENQUE LAUQUEN is a marvel of low-budget ambition. Shot over the course of five years with the barest of means, the film is an epic mosaic of stories-within-stories that never abandons its simple, observational roots even as it pulls off ever-increasing feats of narrative dexterity. The second part in what is likely to become a series of films directed by Citarella and starring Laura Paredes, we’re happy to be showing the film in a double feature with its predecessor OSTENDE.

“A large-scale epic on a small-scale canvas, Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen (2023) is a brain-teaser of a film, a baroque shrine to the endless possibilities of storytelling that’s as focused on grand gestures of narrative dexterity as it is on observational studies of mundane details. At the core of the film is the mystery of a missing woman, Laura (Laura Paredes, also the film’s co-writer), and the attempts by her husband, Rafael (Rafael Spregelburd), and lover, Ezequiel (Ezequiel Pierri), to find her in the small town of Trenque Lauquen, Argentina. With clear nods to Antonioni (the first chapter is titled “La Aventura”) and Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944) Trenque Lauquen weaves a metaphysical mystery on the fungibility of identity and the nature of storytelling itself.

A semi-sequel to—or perhaps remake of—Citarella’s earlier Ostende (2011), which also featured Laura Paredes listlessly wandering around a colorless small town in the Buenos Aires province, Trenque Lauquen carries over the paranoia, hazardous curiosity, and unstated romantic longing which defined the character of Laura in the previous film. A botanical researcher and radio host, the Laura of Trenque Lauquen is both the mysterious, absent center of the film and the jumping-off point from which the film’s myriad stories explode out. The closer the film brings us toward solving the mystery of Laura the further it also drags us into the labyrinthian tales that spin endlessly outward from her character: cryptic markings in library books leading to a secret trove of love letters; an eco-terrorist couple embroiled in a sci-fi conspiracy plot. The result is a head-spinning game that interrogates our desire for understanding and the fundamental fantasies underpinning storytelling.”

– Screen Slate

OSTENDE
Dir. Laura Citarella, 2011
Argentina, 85 minutes
In Spanish with English Subtitles

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7 – 10 PM – In-person intro with Laura Citarella before the screening

GET TICKETS HERE!

Thanks to a radio contest, a girl wins four vacation days in a huge hotel in Ostende, in the Buenos Aires province. It’s the low season, and she gets to the place alone. Her boyfriend will join her a few days later. On the beach there’s plenty of sun but also too much wind; and a not very sophisticated bar with a waiter that talks too much. In this place with no obligations or big attractions apart from a windy beach nearby and the not-so-tempting ocean, the girl starts to pay attention –maybe too much, maybe not enough– to the strange behavior of an old man who’s accompanied by two young women. Flirting with both Hitchcock and Rohmer from a light, feminine perspective, Laura Citrella demonstrates the entrancing possibilities of storytelling in her first film.

 

MYSTERY HALLOWEEN SCREENING

Posted on by Zach Fleming

XXXXXXXX: XXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXX
dir. XXXX XXXXXX, 1993
83 mins. USA.
In English.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 10 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, SPECTATOES!!!

Join us for a 1-time mystery screening of an early 90’s cult splatter masterpiece – currently in the process of a loving remaster, we couldn’t get access to the new version in time for our proper Spectober programming, but in celebration of the season, we’re bringing back the old VHS rip for a final spin, with the director’s blessing no less!

Bring a big ol bucket o candy and get ready for a head exploding bloodbath!

 

A NIGHT WITH LEONARDO PIRONDI AND ZAZIE RAY-TRAPIDO

Posted on by Zach Fleming

Last April, Spectacle presented EARTH/GRAIN/PIXEL, a selection of formally investigative, mesmerizing, and sci-fi-infused experimental shorts from emerging Brazilian filmmaker Leonardo Pirondi.

To celebrate the occasion of Pirondi and filmmaking partner Zazie Ray-Trapido’s upcoming screenings of WHEN WE ENCOUNTER THE WORLD among this year’s New York Film Festival Currents lineup, Spectacle will host a special one-night shorts showcase of the duo’s respective avant-doc ventures into the collision points between the analog, the cybernetic, and the world caught in between.

Both Pirondi and Ray-Trapido will be gracing the theater in the flesh on Friday, October 6th to present and discuss recent 16mm films, a world premiere, and exciting works in progress.

FRIDAY, 10/6 – 7:30 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

NONA
dir. Zazie Ray-Trapido, 2022
USA. 6 mins.

A lush portrait of the filmmaker’s grandmother as she approaches her 90th decade and a marker of Ray-Trapido’s skills with collaborating with documentary “subjects,” NONA weaves together vibrant small-gauge tableaus to evoke a warm synergy between aging and blooming. Eva, the titular hero, provides a narration as compelling and distinct as the visuals make her out to be, ranging from her experiences as a Holocaust survivor to her eagerness to start the next chapter in her life.

SMPTE FOREST
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 2023
USA. 3 mins.

A world premiere of the latest piece in Pirondi’s ongoing ALCHEMICAL VIRTUAL series of formalist micro-length shorts. In line with previous entries, SMPTE FOREST operates as a tech-minded haiku, creating lasting impressions through analog and digital hybridity. The filmmaker’s own description is worth citing here:

“iPhone video and SMPTE color bars were filmed on 16mm at 24fps. The digital overscan of the celluloid is played back at 0.24fps (1% of the original speed). The film is a sequence of 15-second shots in which the computer creates hundreds of frames sampling from three frames. It chooses how to build natural forms out of one of the standard test patterns of NTSC video created by The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.”

VISÃO DO PARAÍSO
(VISION OF PARADISE)
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 2022
Brazil, UK, USA. 16 mins.

Connecting the search for the mythical island of Hy-Brazil off of the Irish coast in the late 15th Century to the race for imagined territories within today’s simulated worlds, VISÃO DO PARAÍSO presents a hypnotic investigation into the ideological underpinnings of unreal and surreal forms of cartographic landscapes through a myriad of inter-medial sources, such as colonial maps, video game time-lapses, and microscopic views of computer circuitry.

TWO WORKS IN PROGRESS
dirs. Leonardo Pirondi and Zazie Ray-Trapido, 20??
USA. 27 mins.

THE REDEEMER: SON OF SATAN

Posted on by Zach Fleming

THE REDEEMER: SON OF SATAN aka CLASS REUNION MASSACRE
dir. Constantine S. Gochis, 1978
United States. 84 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, 10/21 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, 10/27 – 10PM

BOTH SCREENINGS WILL BE FROM AN ORIGINAL 16MM PRINT! $10 TICKETS!

GET YOUR TICKETS!

If you have a craving for terror… come to the class reunion

Six people are trapped within the confines of their old high school during the 10th high school reunion with a psychotic, masked preacher who kills them off for their sinful lives they have made for themselves.

What to say about a regional horror film that opens with a fully clothed child walking out of a lake and getting onto a shuttle bus to a church?

Shot entirely in Staunton, Virginia, THE REDEEMER follows a crazed preacher who orchestrates a fake high school reunion for six sinful classmates (why not seven? we’ll never know), trapping them inside their abandoned old school and picking them off one by one in a series of elaborately staged (and variously costumed) kills – each victim very loosely, though sometimes not at all, connected with one of the seven (six?) deadly sins.

Easily one of the strangest proto-slashers to come out of the 70’s, THE REDEEMER, intentionally or not, manages to capture a rare, disturbingly dreamlike feel from start to finish that never lets up as we follow the preacher’s warped attempts at moral reasoning for each murder.

THE ABSENCE OF MILK IN THE MOUTHS OF THE LOST

Posted on by Zach Fleming

THE ABSENCE OF MILK IN THE MOUTHS OF THE LOST
dir. Case Esparros, 2023
United States. 75 min.
In English.

SPECIAL EVENT

SUNDAY 10/8, 7:30 AND 10PM – TICKETS ARE $10

GET TICKETS HERE!

A single mother struggles with the grief of her missing child on the one-year anniversary of her disappearance, while her neighborhood milkman begins to feel a strong connection to her grief.”

Starring Hannah Weir, Amelie Fernandez, River Faught, and the infamous underground musician Gary Wilson as “The Milkman”. Featuring an original score from Aaron Dilloway (Wolf Eyes).

On October 8th, please join us in welcoming director Case Esparros to Spectacle for the New York premiere of THE ABSENCE OF MILK IN THE MOUTHS OF THE LOST. Followed by a Q&A with moderator Charlotte Ercoli.

SHRIEK SHOW XII

Posted on by spectacletheater

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

Posted on by spectacletheater

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.