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
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
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
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
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
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
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.