Author: spectacletheater

LAST MOVIES

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“Last Movies raises the status of the film programme to that of monumental funerary artwork.”
— Gareth Evans (Adjunct Curator of Moving Image, Whitechapel Gallery)

A durational moving-image experience, film program and parallel publication (Tenement Press, 2023) by Stanley Schtinter, Last Movies remaps the century of cinema according to the final films watched by a selection of its icons, giving an audience the opportunity to see what those who no longer see last saw.

Last Movies is a single-day, multi-venue screening presented in conjunction with Nitehawk Cinema and Light Industry. On November 4, Spectacle will host an afternoon screening of the last film watched by writer Franz Kafka (d. 1924), alongside a compilation of last scenes viewed by 20th-century luminaries as they drew their final breaths.

THE KID
Dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1921
60 mins. USA.
Silent with English intertitles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 3PM (Tickets for this event will be $10)
SCREENING ON 16mm with LIVE SCORE by DAN ARNÉS and ERIK GUNDEL

TICKETS HERE

“That’s a very energetic, work-obsessed man. There burns in his eyes the flame of despair at the unchangeable condition of the oppressed, yet he does not capitulate to it. Despite the white face and the black eyebrows, he’s not a sentimental Pierrot, nor is he some snarling critic. Chaplin is a technician. He’s the man of a machine world, in which most of his fellow men no longer command the requisite emotional and mental equipment to make the life allotted to them really their own. They do not have the imagination. As a dental technician makes false teeth, so he manufactures aids to the imagination. That’s what his films are. That’s what films in general are.” – Franz Kafka on Charlie Chaplin, from Gustav Janouch’s 1971 memoir “Conversations with Kafka.”

Chaplin’s heartwarming story of a street urchin and his down-and-out protector was the last movie Franz Kafka watched before his death in 1924 from tuberculosis. Where and how he came to watch this 1921 tear-jerker is unclear, but Kafka’s well-documented fondness for Chaplin and his tragic screen persona leaves much to consider.

Screening with:

EXCERPTS FROM LAST MOVIES
Dir. Various
37 mins. USA.

Working from curator Stanley Schtinter’s meticulous list of LAST MOVIES, this cinematic prayer for the dead brings together a rapid-fire succession of final films seen by some of the 20th century’s most luminary figures.

Boris Vian (d. 1959)
I Spit on Your Grave (Michel Gast, 1959 [heart attack during the first minutes of the film’s premiere]) *5m screened*

Sergio Leone (d. 1989)
I Want to Live! (Robert Wise, 1958 [heart attack while watching on television]) 120m *30m screened*

Stanley Kubrick (d. 1999)
Eyes Wide Shut Trailer (Stanley Kubrick, 1999) 1m

COLLAGE NOIR

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“It is important that your investigation ends with the question, rather than the answer.”

Mopping up the carnage left by last month’s SPECTOBER, Spectacle is following up its COLLAGE HORREUR series with COLLAGE NOIR, a selection of brooding, introspective, and nihilistic experimental capers and detective films befitting our annual NOIR-VEMBER marathon and in no short supply of trench coats, cigarette smoke, window shades, urban decay, thievery, betrayal, infidelity, fatalistic monologues, and murder.

Following up on last month’s screening and discussion of THE PHILOSOPHY OF HORROR, Hungarian filmmaker Péter Lichter returns with the North American premiere of THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, an Agatha Christie adaptation exploding with a phantasmic suturing of early cinema and desktop documentary. Screening with Lichter’s feature is the crime novel and noir film fantasia EXTERIOR NIGHT by Mark Rappaport, who was the subject of a Spectacle retro in 2018. 

Croatian animator Dalibor Barić, whose collage horror shorts graced the theater in October, also returns with ACCIDENTAL LUXURIANCE OF THE TRANSLUCENT WATERY REBUS. Barić’s first feature is a psycho-spelunking paranoic ego-fuck that fuses noir and sci-fi into an experience that can be described in short hand as ALPHAVILLE on DMT. 

We are also delighted to be hosting the work of collage film pioneer Lewis Klahr with his 1963-set crime feature THE PETTIFOGGER, preceded by two shorts: the black and white ENGRAM SEPALS projected on 16mm and the world premiere of THIN RAIN.

As in October, each filmmaker will be tele-present for remote Q&As throughout the month.


THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES
dir. Péter Lichter, 2022
65 mins. Hungary.
In Hungarian with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 5 PM ($10 w/Q&A)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 – 10 PM

TICKETS HERE

Undoubtedly the better of the two films featuring detective Hercule Poirot to screen in the United States this year, Lichter’s latest foray in appropriation filmmaking adapts Agatha Christie’s 1920 murder mystery of the same name through a combination of intermedial elements such as classic silent and early sound films, video games, Excel spreadsheets, Google street views, and other software tools. The result is a dizzying black and white array of overlapping split-screens that simultaneously reconfigure a century’s worth of analog and computational visual artifacts. At times overwhelming by design, this retelling of Poirot’s first case never obscures the grisliness or wit of Christie’s tale.

Lichter will be joining us again for a remote Q&A on Saturday, November 4 after the 5pm screening.

Screening with:

EXTERIOR NIGHT
dir. Mark Rappaport, 1993
36 mins. United States.

A hard-boiled melodrama, EXTERIOR NIGHT is an ironic and sentimental ode to the intoxications of film noir. Shot in color over black and white backdrops from studio classics such as THE BIG SLEEP and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, a young man explores his dreams to unravel an inter-generational mystery surrounding the death of his elusive gumshoe-turned-mystery novelist grandfather, Biff (David Patrick Kelly).

THE PETTIFOGGER
dir. Lewis Klahr, 2011
65 mins. United States.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 7:30 PM ($10 w/Q&A)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS HERE

“A year in the life of an American gambler and con man circa 1963. A diaristic montage full of glimpses, glances, decaying ephemera and elliptical narrative. An abstract crime film and, like many other crime films involving larceny, a sensorial exploration of the virulence of unfettered capitalism. An impressionistic collage film culled from a wide variety of image and sound sources that fully exploits the hieroglyphic essence of cutouts to ponder what appropriation and stealing have in common. Definitely the longest continuous film I’ve ever created.” —Lewis Klahr

Preceding each screening of the PETTIFOGGER are two of the filmmaker’s other noir-inflected shorts, ENGRAM SEPALS and THIN RAIN, which will receive its world premiere on Saturday, November 11th. This screening will be followed by a remote Q&A moderated by curator, critic, and filmmaker Paul Attard. 

Screening with:

ENGRAM SEPALS
2000. United States.
6 mins. 16mm.

“The dead body remembers. The Tibetan book of the dead meets film noir. An elliptical narrative of adultery and corporate espionage set to a score by Morton Feldman and shot in high contrast B&W. There’s a glimpse of Eternity in those deep, luminous blacks. The title film is from my feature length series ENGRAM SEPALS (Melodramas 1994-2000) which traces a history of American intoxication from World War 2 to the 1970’s.” —Lewis Klahr

THIN RAIN
2023. United States.
15 mins. 

An amnesiac noir and city symphony, Klahr’s first black and white film in almost a decade, contemplates inner and outer voids; an opaque consciousness and the decaying civilization it finds itself within. The film’s trench-coated protagonist is a walking shadow, a lonely silhouette that traverses painted and photographed cityscapes of 20th century New York City. The impressions and atmospheres invoked recall the late Peter B. Hutton’s NEW YORK PORTRAIT, to whom the film is dedicated.

ACCIDENTAL LUXURIANCE OF THE TRANSLUCENT WATERY REBUS
dir. Dalibor Barić, 2020
81 mins. Croatia.
In Croatian with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 5 PM ($10 w/Q&A)
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS HERE

Barić’s first feature-length animated film is the abstract chronicle of a couple, pencil-pusher Martin and conceptual artist Sara, as they attempt to break out of a future dystopian surveillance state. At their heels is the ambivalent Inspector Ambroz, who pushes the case forward despite a mounting existential crisis. Relentlessly polychromatic and hallucinatory, the film’s modulated, fragmented images and cryptic voice over narrations recall the often murky and worryingly uncanny qualities of AI-generated art. In line with noir’s signature pessimism, REBUS imagines a world where the deepest recesses of the human mind have all been thoroughly externalized and everything rendered predictable. A hope granted in viewing the film is that at least some creativity can be found from excavating the cultural wastes.

Special thanks to the enormous generosity of Dalibor Barić, Lewis Klahr, and Péter Lichter. Additional thanks to Paul Attard and Nate Dorr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARMENIA IN POST-PANIC: The Films of Maria Saakyan

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Independent Armenia—living in the perpetual limbo of post-soviet Asia—hasn’t been able to escape an identity defined by past atrocities and aggressions suffered. Today’s generations are left reconciling the uneasy present they’ve been handed while dreaming of a future that doesn’t seem to exist. Young musicians in the budding scene in Yerevan have coined a genre that describes this suffocating state of being that also seeks to resist against the odds: Post-Panic. If ever there were a filmmaker to embody the Post-Panic spirit, it’s the late Maria Saakyan, whose premature passing in early-2018 left us mourning yet another lost Armenian future.

With tensions rising in the region yet again and another genocide of Armenians threatening, Spectacle presents this COVID-delayed retrospective of some of Maria’s films, all of which embody a rather materialist hope against a more existential dread.

From her early shorts to the (few) features she was able to make, a consistently haunting ethereality seeps in the muted tones of her images, exploring a matter-of-fact type of depression that finds comfort in objects and the body. Occasionally surreal, her work subtly confronts the disappointments of generations past, never forgetting their hardships all the while. Though Saakyan draws from the soviet masters that came before (Tarkovsky, Paradjanov, et al.), she was able to develop a raw yet pointed style that cements her as perhaps the most important Armenian filmmaker since Don Askarian.

Spectacle would like to share a few organizations that are accepting donations in light of the ongoing and escalating aggressions in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Any help provided to the affected indigenous Armenians is deeply appreciated. *linktree/orgs to come*


MAYAK (LIGHTHOUSE)
(Маяк)
dir. Maria Saakyan, 2006
Armenia/Russia. 78 min.
In Russian with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 5 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS HERE

Saakyan’s MAYAK tells a distinctly Hayq (and unfortunately very timely) tale of living through a one-sided war. A young woman, Lena, attempts to convince her grandparents to escape to Russia, only to find herself trapped by invading forces. And yet, life goes on. What does it mean to live—and be alive—in this existence? Gorgeous, somber images, object comfort, and a tragically accepted melancholy coalesce into the defining text of Maria’s style, also the first Armenian feature to be completed by a woman.


I’M GOING TO CHANGE MY NAME (ALAVERDI)
(Это не я)
dir. Maria Saakyan, 2012
Armenia/Russia. 103 min.
In Russian with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 – 5 PM

TICKETS HERE

Set in the small North Armenian town of Alaverdi, I’M GOING TO CHANGE MY NAME sees the neglected, aimless, isolated 14-year-old Evridika experiencing the first extremes of adolescent emotion as she frequents the chat rooms of an online “suicide club” and grows closer to one of its mysterious members. Partially based on the nine-part song ‘Sharakan’ (which Evridika’s absent mother is also touring with her choir), partially based on disoriented fragments of Eurydice’s imprisonment and Oedopis’ tragedy, Maria’s haunted film examines youth’s connection to reality through screens and lo-fi cell phone footage. A quintessential film in the “depression as boredom” canon, is it possible to exist if no one sees you? If no one touches you?

 

DECADES OF DEBRIS (fka BENJI’S WORLD)

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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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.