Spectober – Spectacle Theater

NOIRVEMBER AT SPECTACLE – VI

Posted on November 12, 2025November 12, 2025 by Isaac Hoff

Noirvember returns for those who can’t kick the habit. This year’s slate takes a deep drag into the void through dreamlike backstreets (AKA cheapo lots), thickened studio fog, & quintessential location photography. We visit some of the most dissonant corners of the canon, the rough edges of the genre’s dimmest flickers, and explore what’s left when the last match burns out.

5pm – *** ******** ********

We open this season’s Noirvember with an ultra low-budget police-procedural that boasts some of the most impressive on-location photography of the era. Our opening selection is a lean and stylish film noir featuring a slew of non-actors in what feels like a time capsule.

630p – **** ***** * ********

Next up, a gloomy coming-of-age film noir disguised as a surrealist folktale. This vastly underrated film noir features photography from the genre’s greatest cameraman working as a gun for hire and features a small role for an accused communist turned Washington hostess.

8pm – *** ********** *****

This year’s prime-time slot goes to our favorite card-slinging auteur and features one of film noir’s greatest mugs in a transgressive tale of corruption and greed.10pm – *** * ***** *******

A deftly-paced romantic comedy disguised as film noir (or perhaps the reverse). Directed by one of the masters of the genre and featuring all the classic tropes, while light-hearted in spirit, this film is an absolute gem with excellent performances and character chemistry.

11:30pm – **** **** ********

We conclude this season of Noirvember with some late-night melancholy. Directed by character actor turned b-film auteur, this melodramatic chamber piece is a fitting late-night finale to sealed fates & waning embers.

INCUBUS

Posted on September 24, 2025September 30, 2025 by danschindel

INCUBUS
(INKUBO)
Dir. Leslie Stevens, 1966
United States. 74 min.
In Esperanto with English subtitles.

TICKETS

Thursday, October 2 – 10PM
Tuesday, October 7 – 7:30PM
Friday, October 17 – 5PM
Thursday, October 30 – 7:30PM

Malbono neniam estis tiel alloga

Living as a Jew in the Russian Empire through the latter half of the 19th Century, ophthalmologist L.L. Zamenhof was dismayed at the innumerable conflicts around him spawned by ethnic tensions, religious differences, and rising nationalist sentiment. Convinced that world peace would be achieved if disparate peoples could communicate easily with each other, Zamenhof developed Esperanto to act as a universal auxiliary language. His pet project became the center of a global community of goodwill and intercultural communication in the early 20th Century, a poignant example of the Utopian aspirations of the age (the word esperanto means “one who hopes”). Esperanto remains the most widely spoken constructed language in the world.

In 1965, after the cancellation of his television series THE OUTER LIMITS, Leslie Stevens began production on a horror film to keep his crew (which included future three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Conrad Hall) working. Stevens figured that having all the dialogue spoken in Esperanto would be a neat way to inject some uniqueness into the picture, and would help it get into arthouses, “where subtitles were.” The distinctly OUTER LIMITS-esque story features a village with a well that yields healing waters, attracting a soldier, Marc, who seeks to recover from his war wounds. A local succubus, Kia (Stevens’ wife Allyson Ames), tries to tempt Marc and secure his soul for Hell, but since he’s played by William Shatner, she naturally falls for his charms instead, incurring the wrath of the titular incubus (Alain Delon’s stunt double/bodyguard Milos Milos).

Shot in two weeks in NorCal, INCUBUS ultimately premiered to jeers from Esperanto speakers at the 1966 San Francisco Film Festival. The performers all learned their lines phoetically, which is obvious even if you don’t know the language. Still, Stevens was correct that it lends the movie an eerie, otherworldly quality. The film only received a theatrical run in France before ignominiously fading into a curio. Stevens blamed the lack of interest not on the movie’s dialogue being spoken in what was essentially an alien language, but on its assocation with Milos, who had killed his lover Barbara Ann Thomason (Mickey Rooney’s estranged wife) and then himself. Shatner would, of course, in short order become involved with a much better-known Utopian project. (By the way, the Esperanto term for “a blade”? Klingon.) Esperanto cinema never really caught on–INCUBUS remains one of only a handful of features shot wholly in the language–but Zamenhof’s dream endures.

INCUBUS was believed lost for decades before a well-worn 16mm print was discovered in the Cinémathèque Française in the late ’90s, which served as the basis for a new 35mm version and a DVD release. A 35mm copy in much better condition was found in 2023, and Le Chat Qui Fume used it to restore the film in 4K. Spectacle is excited to present the New York premiere of this restoration.

Thanks to Phil Ginley, Esther Rosenfield, and the American Genre Film Archive.

MIIKE MADNESS 2025

Posted on September 21, 2025October 3, 2025 by laura

SATURDAY OCT 11th ALL DAY 10AM-2AM

$5 PER SHOW or $25 FULL DAY

Day Passes Available HERE, Individual tickets will be available at the door.

THIS OCTOBER SPECTACLE IS PROUD TO BRING YOU AN ALL DAY MYSTERY MARATHON OF THE WORK OF THE GREATEST LIVING FILMMAKER, TAKASHI MIIKE.

FIND LOVE AND DIE THIS SPECTOBER.

Most famous in the west for his extreme horror and gonzo yakuza films, Miike is prolific (Over 110 features, A dozen television series) and even more influential. His films range from classy remakes to video game + manga adaptations, children’s films to torture porn, samurai masterpieces to filmed stage productions, psychedelic comedies to anime — even a recently teased upcoming collaboration with Charli XCX(?!?)

Miike’s work is unflinching but humane, cruel to the point of excruciating and drawn to stories of outsider characters (queer, foreign, female) in hostile male spaces, mordantly funny in his darkest moments, a tone none of his acolytes can ever hope to capture.

Miike cut his teeth on direct to video films (dubbed V-cinema in Japan) for a decade before exploding onto the European festival circuit at the turn of the century with his beloved gore classics Audition and Ichi the Killer. Currently he is prepping Bad Lieutenant Tokyo for release, now the third iconoclastic director in the series pantheon with Abel Ferrara and Werner Herzog. He has cameos in both Hostel and the Animal Crossing movie.

He is your favorite director’s favorite director. He is the hardest working submissive in show business. Spectacle can barely hope to scratch the surface in honoring him today, with this 7 film marathon.

Expect some surprises.

~~~~

10 am
XXXX XXXXX: XXXXXXXX XX X XXXX
dir. Takashi Miike, 1991.
Japan, 79 mins.
In Japanese and English with English subtitles.

A kidnapped child triggers an international incident, in the most rampage mode movie ever released direct to video. Imagine if Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever was remade by an insane person.

Noon
XXX XXXXX
dir. Takashi Miike, 1999.
Japan, 85 mins.
In Japanese, Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles.

Three teens of Chinese descent get in way over their heads in this lyrical gem reminiscent of Wong Kar Wai… only possessing a much crueler worldview.

2 pm
XXXXXXX
dir. Takashi Miike, 2001.
Japan, 150 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

A soulful yakuza epic that bridges the gap between Fukasaku and Kitano, largely unseen by western audiences who were already going to Miike for grossouts rather than emotional depth.

INTERMISSION

6 pm
XXXX XXXXX XXXXXX
dir. Takashi Miike, 1997.
Japan, 103 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

A mad cybernetics scientist experiments on a severed head in this exploration of masculine ideation. *Exactly* the kind of movie you come to Spectacle to see.

8 pm
XXXX
dir. Takashi Miike, 2003.
Japan, 130 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

Nightmarish and droll, two criminals stumble into a surrealistic horror tale that will have something to upset or delight just about anyone.

10:30 pm
XXXXXXXXX X
dir. Takashi Miike, 2001.
Japan, 84 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

One of Miike’s many remakes of a beloved arthouse classic, also one of the most fucked up movies ever made.

MIDNIGHT
XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXX
dir. Takashi Miike, 2007.
Japan, 120 mins.
In English.

When art directors die they go to the set of this film in heaven. Lowkey a musical. Miike once declared “Paul Verhoeven loved it!”

OZUALDO CANDEIAS’ A HERANÇA

Posted on September 19, 2022October 19, 2022 by Zach Fleming

A HERANÇA
(A HERITAGE)
dir. Ozualdo Candeias, 1970
Brazil. 83 min.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29 – 10PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Following up the North American premiere of Candeias’ Brazilian Western, MEU NOM E TONHO, Spectacle Theater & Cinelimite are proud to present the US premiere of Candeias 1970 film, A HERANÇA, an experimental adaptation of Hamlet which takes place in Brazil’s rural west further pushing the boundaries of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its relation to the history of rural Brazil.

Candeias’ third feature composed of some of the most haunting and lyrical images of his entire oeuvre is set to a surrealistic soundscape of popular music, laughs, grunts, & the sounds of nature and it remains one of the most poetic translations of the classic Shakespearean tale.

Special thanks to Eugenio Puppo and Heço Produções.

JACK-O

Posted on September 10, 2022October 19, 2022 by Zach Fleming

JACK-O
Dir. Steve Latshaw, 1995
USA, 88 min
In English

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14 – 10PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21 – MIDNIGHT
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 – 7:30PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

HE’S BAAACK!

A long long time ago a wizard was put to death, but he swore vengeance on the townsfolk that did him in, particularly Arthur Kelly’s family. Arthur had done the final graces on him when he came back to life as Mr. Jack the Pumpkin Man. The Kellys proliferated through the years, and when some devil-may-care teens accidentally unleash Jack-O, young Sean Kelly must stop him somehow as his suburban world is accosted and the attrition rate climbs

It’s not often you encounter garbage with a heart as golden as JACK-O’s, a mid-90’s straight to DVD slasher that hasn’t gotten the cult following it deserves.
Shot on a shoestring budget on location in Apopka, Florida and produced by legendary B-filmmaker Fred Olen Ray. Also features scream queen Linnea Quigley, and John Carradine’s final (released) performance – filmed in 1985, seven years before his death and a full decade before the film’s listed release date.
Don’t miss this chance to catch your new bargain bin Halloween favorite on the big screen!

SPECTACLE SHRIEK SHOW VI

Posted on October 1, 2016December 28, 2019 by Taylor Adams

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29 – ALL DAY!

Crunch a leaf, smash a pumpkin, key a car! The time is at hand. Tricks, treats, and everything in between – the 6th (!!!) Annual (!!!) SPECTACLE SHRIEK SHOW is upon us! Post up for 12ish (probably 14) hours of cerebellum boiling insanity with your favorite Spectaghouls. This year we have the premiere of Appalachian satanists, perilous board games, some rare and secret archival prints from Radical Hardware, as well as the usual who’s who of fiendish friends, shorts, songs, and surprises. After five years strong of marathons this one is truly one for the books. Don’t miss out! As always, $25 for the day or $5 each film.

NOON: THE SCREAMING SKULL
2PM: Camp Motion Pictures presents SPLATTER FARM
4PM: Junk Food Dinner presents BEYOND THE GATES
6PM: Radical Hardware presents SPARE THE ROD…
8PM: DON’T LET THE DEVIL IN
10PM: Vinegar Syndrome presents HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY 5
MIDNIGHT: Massacre Video presents WOMEN’S FLESH: MY RED GUTS

GET YOUR TICKETS!

THE SCREAMING SKULL
dir. Alex Nicol, 1958
68 min, USA
In English

Newlyweds Eric and Jenni decide it’s a good idea to move back to the mansion where Eric’s first wife died under mysterious circumstances. Luckily for the couple, the grounds have been maintained by an old family friend – Mickey (director Alex Nichol) the gardener. After settling in, the already mentally exhausted Jenni begins hearing bumps/screams in the night. Is the ghost of Marianne come back to seek revenge? Is it her jerky new husband gaslighting her? Some combination of both? Hard to say, we think you can guess though. Fun fact: when the film was first released director Nichol promised a free burial to anyone who died of fright during the climax of the film.

Camp Motion Pictures presents: SPLATTER FARM
dir. John & Mark Polonia, 1987
70 min, USA
In English

Special thanks to Mark Polonia!

Two twin brothers (played by the filmmakers, as they are wont to do) visit their aunt at her farm seated deep in beautiful rural Pennsylvania. While they think they’ll simply be honing their green thumbs and helping their dear old auntie, things take a harrowing turn. Can you believe it? Terrible acts abound, folks are turning up missing (or worse!), and it’s revealed their aunt’s farmhand has a very disturbing set of extra-curricular activities.

The Polonia Brothers hold a special place in the hearts of us here at Spectacle. Having had a blast with FEEDERS once upon a midnight, we at the Shriek Show are honored to be blessed with showing this slab of analog insanity to an audience hungry for tape hiss and mini-Butterfingers especially hot on the heels of Mark Polonia’s new work. As always, many thanks to Camp Motion Pictures who have been down with the burning S since forever.

Junk Food Dinner presents: BEYOND THE GATES
dir. Jackson Stewart, 2016
84 minutes, USA
In English

Special thanks to Jackson Stewart!

Two estranged brothers reunite at their missing father’s video store to liquidate the property and sell off his assets. As they dig through the store, they find a VCR board game dubbed ‘Beyond The Gates’ that holds a connection to their father’s disappearance and deadly consequences for anyone who plays it.

Cult film podcast juggernauts Junk Food Dinner (who provided commentary for the upcoming blu-ray release) and filmmaker Jackson Stewart bring a loving tribute to the evil’s of VHS and tabletop gaming to Spectacle for a special Halloween treat. Barbara Crampton (FROM BEYOND) stars alongside Chase Willamson (THE GUEST) and Brea Grant (HALLOWEEN II) in a flick certain to make you reconsider picking up the dice ever again. Also, we’ll be giving away a copy of NIGHTMARE (The Video Board Game) to a lucky audience member so you can experience the terror at home or maybe a motel that still has a VCR in it but no continental breakfast.

Radical Hardware presents: SPARE THE ROD… (Secret 16mm!)
dir. Robert Enrico / Don Weis, 1964 / 1963
60 min, France / USA
In English

Oooooooh baby. It’s about six o’clock. The 6th annual Shriek Show is rolling right along and we are in the ZONE! The sun is setting, it’s TWILIGHT! Man it’s almost like we’re in some sort of TWILIGHT ZONE. Like you’re so comfy in your seat and you hear the soothing whir of a projector as it fires up. Yeah that’s the stuff. It’s almost like Radical Hardware is coming through the velvet curtains and screening not one but two pristine 16mm archival prints of a beloved and game-changing show from almost 55 years ago. Crazy right? Like maybe you’d be watching two works written by genre masters Richard Matheson and Ambrose Bierce. Is it an illusion? Is it a secret screening? Is it the first time in Shriek Show history we’ve had the 16mm projector out? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

DON’T LET THE DEVIL IN (NY Premiere!)
dir. Courtney Fathom Sell, 2016
80 min, USA
In English

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAr9eiiSqf0

After suffering a miscarriage, Newlyweds John and Samantha Harris relocate from New York City to a small Appalachian town where they become wrapped up in a nightmarish tapestry of evil.

Sell’s film eschews conventional genre and instead hops gleefully around – owing as much to the backwoods horrors of last years standout MIDNIGHT as it does to Satanic Panic mainstays like ROSEMARY’S BABY. Aided by the rolling hills and picturesque backdrop of rural West Virginia, the film lures the viewer into an expansive wilderness and then manages to trap you in it. Also featuring Ed Wood/Mark Pirro player Conrad Brooks!

Vinegar Syndrome presents HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY 5 (New restoration!)
Dir. Richard Casey, 1985
87 minutes, USA
In English

A mysterious killer, wearing a Nixon mask, terrorizes and murders a young couple. A professor assigns his students a project investigating the strange events connected to a possibly dead Nazi scientist, Dr. Fredrick Bartholomew. The doctor’s assistant kidnaps students, holding them hostage and torturing them. Meanwhile, Nixon stalks the night!

One of the most confusing and compelling homemade horror films ever made, future music video director Richard Casey’s debut feature film, shot over years on nights and weekends, is a delirious collage of oddball gore, ludicrous plot twists, and a general milieu of weirdness unlike anything else in cinema history. Newly restored from original 16mm vault elements by the almighty Vinegar Syndrome, HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY 5 finally gets the treatment it so richly deserves. A head-scratcher of this magnitude hasn’t graced the Shriek Show screen since…well, probably last year!

Massacre Video presents WOMEN’S FLESH: MY RED GUTS
Dir. Tomakichi Anaru, 1999
54 min, Japan
In Japanese

Director Tomakichi Anaru made a splash with his first feature and foray into the field of extreme cinema – TUMBLING DOLL OF FLESH, a pseudo-snuff nightmare – but WOMEN’S FLESH: MY RED GUTS is more of a slice of life. Like we’re seeing something we’re not supposed to see. Finger eating, tongue slicing, dismal bathroom lighting, and flashbacks flicker across the screen while you squirm in your seats. Massacre Video (a Shriek Show/Spectacle mainstay) has never been one to shy away from rare and often shocking titles – MONDO MAGIC, THE ABOMINATION, and 555, all come to mind – but this is one for the books.

Closing out this years marathon with easily one of the most grizzly entries to date, this is not for the faint of heart – consider yourself warned.

SPECTOBER V

Posted on September 30, 2016December 28, 2019 by smacfarlane

For the fifth year, Spectacle is proud to present a month-long, lovingly-selected series of unknown, mysterious, and shocking films from around the world. This time around includes surreal French slasher reductions, American gore classics, Yugoslavian political repression murder sprees, and a rare full cut of insanity from Mexico’s Panic movement.

DARK WATERS (TEMNYE VODY)
Dir. Mariano Baino, 1993.
UK/Russia, 94 minutes.
English.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 3 – 7:30PM
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13 – 7:30PM *Special Introduction by Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni*
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 10:00PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

DARK WATERS is the recipient of the Prix Du Public at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival and the Vincent Price Award at Rome’s Fantafestival and has been hailed as a “masterpiece of arthouse horror” by Filmmaker Magazine’s Scott Macauley and an “unholy hybrid of Bergman and Argento” by Film Review magazine.

Young Englishwoman Elizabeth travels to an ascetic convent on an isolated Eastern European island to settle the affairs of her late father, against his last wishes. Confined by the sea and chambers of the convent, and under the ireful scrutiny of the sisters, Elizabeth experiences disorienting visions of a horror she can not recall. Director Mariano Baino shot the footage for DARK WATERS in Ukraine just after the Soviet Union’s dissolution. The rich cinematography and gorgeous location add to the eeriness of this Lovecraft-adjacent horror story.

Join us Thursday October 13 at 7:30pm for a special screening of DARK WATERS, introduced by actress and multi-talented artist Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, star of director Mariano Baino’s latest short LADY M 5.1 as well as his upcoming feature, ASTRID’S SAINTS, which Baino and Cataldi-Tassoni co-wrote. Cataldi-Tassoni is known for her work in seminal European films such as Dario Argento’s Opera, Phantom of The Opera, Mother Of Tears and for her starring debut as Sally Day in Lamberto Bava’s Demons 2. Cataldi-Tassoni is also an accomplished painter, singer and musician, and her work can be viewed here.

MADELEINE, STUDY OF A NIGHTMARE
Dir. Roberto Mauri, 1974.
Italy, 110 min.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 – 5:00PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12 – 10:00PM
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22 – 5:00PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Given that writer/director Roberto Mauri’s best known for schlock like THE PORNO KILLERS and CURSE OF THE BLOOD GHOULS, the sustained unease of MADELEINE’s sun-soaked scenes seems happy coincidence rather than intentional. Similar to LE ORME, MADELEINE creates a palpable sense of dread and mystery by delaying an inevitable confrontation with reality (before throwing it away with a boiler plate twist ending). Camille Keaton’s laisse faire acting style works to the advantage of a story about a woman unable to directly acknowledge deep personal trauma, but trying to; her efforts mostly take the form of swanning around a gorgeous Italian villa seducing one man after another (if this is a nightmare, sign me up). And yet, the increasing sense her will is not her own, that her mysterious husband/lover/benefactor isn’t acting benevolently, that her very self is slipping away, turns what could have been mere softcore into a haunting look at a woman struggling with her own id and losing.

SCREAM BLOODY MURDER
Dir. Marc B. Ray, 1973
USA, 90 Minutes

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22 – MIDNIGHT

GET YOUR TICKETS!

A troubled young man with a hook for a hand (he lost it as a boy while killing his father with a tractor) and a serious aversion to sex murders anyone who gets in the way of his love for a prostitute in this grimy slasher flick from 1973. Much in the vein of films like “The Witch Who Came From the Sea” and “Criminally Insane,” “Scream Bloody Murder” seems to have crawled directly from the gutter, (though actually it was made by the writers of Ann-Margret and Raquel Welch TV specials) with a warped internal logic that effectively drags you into it’s bleak, blood-drenched world. From the creators of “The Severed Arm.”

LA MANSION DE LA LOCURA (THE MANSION OF MADNESS)
Dir. Juan López Moctezuma
Mexico, 99 min.
In English (originally shot in English, dubbed into Spanish)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15 – 5:00PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 10:00PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26 – 10:00PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
Beginning with Poe’s story The System Of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, in which a reporter visits an asylum to discover the system by which the insane and the caregivers has become a bit muddled, we enter into a place where political satire and surrealist horror blend into a truly astonishing film, where a man becomes a chicken, the body becomes a musical instrument, and nothing is ever as it seems. Director Juan Lopez Moctezuma (ALUCARDA, MARY MARY BLOODY MARY), a member of Mexico’s Panic movement alongside Alejandro Jodorowski and Fernando Arrabal: the three having worked together on FANDO Y LIS, which should give you some idea of what you’re in for. Led by the great Claudio Brook (CRONOS, THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL) as the mad Dr. Maillard (as well as Raoul Fragonard), the film is as a dream, a ritual, a series of living tableaux. Describing the plot would be to cheapen the film, but it’s worth noting no less than Leonora Carrington served as art director. We are honored to present this film in its longest known cut, with the original English dialogue, miles from public domain cuts. Those expecting cheap horror will be disappointed; those expecting clarity will be confused, those with eyes to see will behold a revelation.

FOLIES MEURTRIERES
Dir. Antoine Pellissier, 1984
France, 47 min.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 10:00PM
MONDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 10:00PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

The slasher film, like any genre, has various approaches. From the baroque excess of its giallo roots to the meta-awareness of the Scream series, from scuzzy video nasties like The Toolbox Murders and Don’t Answer The Phone! to the satirical aspects of The Slumber Party Massacre, there’s a variation for any taste, so long as your tastes lead to seeing people get killed. It can also be stripped down to its most minimal elements: 80s synth dirge, long POV shots and gruesome set piece murders. That’s what FOLIES MEURTRIERES provides: the slasher boiled down to a kind of dead-eyed late-night trance, all VHS tape hiss and HG Lewis-style gore effects and zero relateable character development or or wisecracking comic relief. Anyone looking for a well-written mimetically plausible story won’t find it here: this is homemade murderdrone haze. Information on this film is sparse, which may be for the best; it’s a film that you might pick up from a box of unmarked VHS tapes on a streetcorner only to discover diseased dreams of torment and bloodshed stained onto magnetic tape. We will say director Antione Pellissier’s day job is medical examiner, which is fitting for a film far closer to Grand Guignol than the action-film-jump-scare world of contemporary horror.

“The woozy, warped tape of Folies Meurtrieres has no subtitles. That’s okay, as there are maybe five lines in the film that aren’t a narrator reading off the date of the murder you are about to see. The 47 minute film is just that: a series of murders without context or plot, and within each murder sequence lies a different variation on the classic slasher scenario.” -Peter Galvin, MURDERDRONE

THE APE WOMAN
(aka LA DONNA SCIMMIA)
Dir. Marco Ferreri, 1964
Italy/France, 100 min.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6 – 7:30PM
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 10:00PM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23 – 5:00PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

By means of disclosure: THE APE WOMAN is not a scary movie per se, but rather a withering satire of masculinist culture, the apparatus of “freak show” exploitation, and the tacit racisms of the so-called Western World. (Who would expect anything less from Italian auteur Marco “DILLINGER IS DEAD” Ferreri?) Annie Giradot stars as the nominal donna scimmia Marie, a beautiful young woman suffering a rare condition that covers her body with long, thick hair – based on the real-life case of Julia Pastrana, whose hypertrichosis terminalis left her resembling a cross between simian and human. She comes under the thumb of an opportunistic lout played by Ugo Tognazzi, who begins to make big plans for the two of them – showing Marie off, concocting bogus tales about her discovery “in Africa”, training her to whoop and holler for the audience.

Via Marie’s prolonged expectations and unfulfilled hopes, a tender and devastating parable ensues, a study in gender relations (to say nothing of the Italian Catholic church) and the politics of what is/isn’t “scary” according to 20th century showmanship. THE APE WOMAN still has plenty to say, and fits alongside THE SEED OF MAN and BYE BYE MONKEY as one of Ferreri’s blistering works that’s long overdue for reevaluation.

“The only redeeming feature of this oddly distasteful film is the fact that a certain haunting pathos does emerge from it.….It is evident that the censors have used their shears on this film. The producer should have beat them to it. He should have used shaving cream.” – Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

DÉJÀ VU (VEC VIDJENO)
Dir. Goran Markovic, 1987
Yugoslavia, 102 min.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 3 – 10:00PM
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 – 5:00PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Déjà vu concerns a troubled piano teacher, Mihailo (Mustafa Nadarevic), and his efforts to come to terms with reality through a love affair with a poor but industrious girl, Olgica (Anica Dobra). When she dumps him for a younger boyfriend (hoping to make a political career in the Communist Youth organization), Mihailo is overrun by the ghosts of his past and begins a killing spree. Flashbacks which explain the killer’s motivation are intrinsic to the film’s central idea. The apparent contrast between the past and the present becomes a parallel, thanks to the clever transitions between shots. Mihailo becomes unable to distinguish the ‘reflections’ of the past upon his own present, and is thus driven over the edge.

Written by Ghoul via IMDB

FOLIES MEURTRIERES

Posted on September 24, 2016December 28, 2019 by smacfarlane

FOLIES MEURTRIERES
Dir. Antoine Pellissier, 1984
France, 47 min.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 10PM
MONDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 10PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

BORO IN THE BOX

Posted on September 24, 2016December 28, 2019 by smacfarlane

BORO IN THE BOX
Dir. Bertrand Mandico, 2011.
France. 40 min.
In French with English subs.

LIVING STILL LIFE
Dir. Bertrand Mandico, 2012.
France/Belgium/Germany. 15 min.
In French with English subs.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9 – 7:30PM
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29 – 7:30PM

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Bertrand Mandico might be one of the last great surrealist filmmakers in operation. His films occupy a unique area of the fantastic uncanny, where babies may be born encased in wooden crates, and artificial natural environments erupt into the colors and signs of deepest dreams. But the look and feel of his world is all his own. His “Incoherence Manifesto” sheds some light on a methodology which favors all manner of the unnatural and anti-real, along with all in-camera effects shot on expired film stock and a refusal of the cinematographic rationality of narrative and genre. And yet his films are far from abstract or storyless. Instead, they tell entrancing stories of twilight lives spent in pursuit of macabre marvels.

BORO IN THE BOX is Mandico’s ostensible biopic of Polish animator-turned-eroticist Walerian Borowczyk. But where we might expect a biopic to dramatize the rough facts of a life, Mandico’s, instead, seems to express only the seething subconscious of Borowczyk’s speculative formative experiences and artistic impulses. The results may be the only biography that’s truly up to a filmmaker as singular as Borowczyk: an alphabetical series of phantasmagoric tableaux on the voyeurism of film, psychosexually-fraught familial relationships, and the struggle to create. O, of course, is for Obscene, but that doesn’t even begin to cover it.

The film will be accompanied by one of Mandico’s finest shorts to date, LIVING STILL LIFE, also taking on the story of an idiosyncratic artist. Frequent collaborator Elina Lowensohn (who also plays Borowczyk’s mother) appears as an outsider animator who uses her art to briefly resurrect dead animals recovered from a virulently-colorful wilderness of autumnal decay. Like BORO, the film follows a determined structure, a progressive increase in stakes as she pursues larger and more serious subjects. Meanwhile, a stranger looks on, awaiting the moment to precipitate a haunting final act.

SPECTACLE SHRIEK SHOW V

Posted on October 23, 2015December 26, 2019 by spectacletheater

For the fifth year in a row, Spectacle is proud to present our 12ish hour horror marathon – The Spectacle Shriek Show. Throughout October midnight screenings have paid tribute to presenters from the last five years and this years line up is one of the most diverse yet. We’ve got 60’s spectral horror, German gut-munchers, made for TV Frankensteins, Mexican Satanists, cannibals who talk to their fish, dark Easter rituals, and surreal Italian brain-liquifiers.

Settle in for a full day of terror that you “can’t” escape! As always it’s $25 for the full day or $5 per film.

NOON – THE GHOST a.k.a. Lo Spettro
1:30 PM – ANTHROPOPHAGUS 2000 presented by Massacre Video
3:00 PM – DEAD MEAT presented by Horror Boobs & Wild Eye
5:00 PM – FRANKENSTEIN (I SWEAR ON MY MOTHER’S EYES) THE TRUE STORY presented by Lunchmeat VHS Fanzine
7:30 PM – John Russo’s MIDNIGHT
10:00 PM – GRAVE ROBBERS a.k.a. Ladrones de Tumbas
MIDNIGHT – Cosmotropia De Xam’s INFERNO VENEZIANO presented by Negative Pleasure & Phantasma Disques

THE GHOST
A.k.a. Lo Spettro
Dir. Riccardo Freda, 1963
Italy, 97 min.

Spectacle marathon and midnight mainstay Barbara Steele and her giant eyes return for another tale of deceit, deception, and MURDER MOST FOUL! Steele plays Margaret Hichcock (no “T”) the wife of the wheelchair bound Dr. Hichcock. Not content to wait around for her husband to die of natural causes, Margaret and her lover decide to take matters into their own hands. Before his body is even cold, strange events befall the mansion and the two adulterers are shaken to their very core! Has Dr. Hichcock returned from the grave to reap a horrible vengeance? (Kind of!) Is this gothic tale of madness and betrayal the perfect kickoff to this years festivities? (YES.) A harkening back to last year’s opening screening of NIGHTMARE CASTLE, this one sets the mood/doom for the rest of your day.

ANTHROPOPHAGOUS 2000 presented by Massacre Video
Dir. Andreas Schnaas, 1999
Germany, 80 min.
In German with English subtitles.

Massacre has been going five years strong (555, DEMON QUEEN, THE ABOMINATION, MONDO MAGIC) as presenters in the Shriek Show and this years entry is…something else.

Nikos and his family are trapped during a heavy story in a boat, leading to the unfortunate death of their daughter Vicky. Nikos becomes mad with the desire to survive, and he begins to kill and eat his own wife. Nikos manages to reach the shore of a small island, but his appetite for human flesh has consumed him. A group of young people on vacation have an unfortunate meeting with Niko. Will these youngsters make it out alive? (No.)

Massacre Video proudly presents, ANTHROPOPHAGOUS 2000, from the German Splatter master Andreas Schnaas (of the VIOLENT SHIT series), fully uncut for the first time ever in America!

DEAD MEAT presented by Horror Boobs & Wild Eye
Dir. Tom Vollmann, 1993
USA, 107 min.

A true VHS rarity from the early 90’s DEAD MEAT was heavily bootlegged so it must be good, right? RIGHT. Think of all the classic characters from this slab of analog insanity – Sgt. John “Mo” Mentum, First Victim, Pizza Boy, and the rest! Basically a serial killer named The Senses Taker (guess what he takes from his victims) is running amok and these cops HATE it!

Filled to the brim with great gore, angry stock police characters, VERY long chase scenes, and a lot of scenes of a truly insane person talking to their pet fish this is a rare treat. Horror Boobs and Wild Eye will be officially releasing this lost clas-sick and we’ve got the premiere!

FRANKENSTEIN (I SWEAR ON MY MOTHER’S EYES) THE TRUE STORY presented by Lunchmeat VHS Fanzine
Dir. Gary Cohen, 1983
USA, 90 min.

The hoots and howls of Halloween excitement are nearly in full swing as our favorite holiday fast approaches, Tapeheads, and in order to ring in the radical rewind VHSpirit right this Halloween, Lunchmeat has been keeping busy in the kitchen cooking up a super-sweet VHS treat for all the voracious Videovores out there. So, without any further analog ado, we proudly present some of the most exciting fresh VHS news of the season: Lunchmeat is absolutely elated to announce the unprecedented home video release of the ultra-obscure, shot-on-video, made-for-cable production FRANKENSTEIN (I SWEAR ON MY MOTHER’S EYES) THE TRUE STORY!

We’ve teamed up with the great Gary Cohen, director of cult SOV classics VIDEO VIOLENCE 1 & 2 to unearth this long lost slice of shot-on-video horror comedy insanity. Gary co-writes and stars in this utterly unknown film that debuted on Cablevision on Halloween night in 1983, and after a single airing, has since fell into complete obscurity. And now, over 30 years later, Lunchmeat is bringing this never-before-seen low-budget trashterpiece take on the classic tale of Frankenstein back from the grave!

The print used for the release comes directly from Gary’s archives (the only known surviving print!), keeping intact all of the grit and grain of the original analog-shot broadcast. The release will also include a video intro from Josh Schafer (yours truly!) talking about the inception of the release, and an exclusive intro from star and co-writer Gary Cohen, explaining how the production came to be, and why it’s been obscured for all these years. Here’s an excerpt from that intro with Gary Cohen, just to give you a little taste of history on this flick:

“I must admit, this whole project is shrouded in secrecy… at the time, what is now Comcast, I believe it was Cablevision back then… had a studio in New Jersey, and they were advertising, I think, for people who wanted to do some kind of cable access shows… my friend Richard Dominick (of Jerry Springer fame) decided he would pitch a project for Halloween, and write this version of Frankenstein. We got together, he wrote a script about Frankenstein, and we used a lot of the actors who you’ll recognize from Video Violence, who were all a part of Celebration Playhouse, this theater group in New Jersey. I believe we had about a day to film this thing, filmed on video, on three and a quarter inch video… and if memory serves, we were high or drunk or something when we we’re doing it… Once it aired, everybody disavowed any knowledge of the project. It is truly unique; it’s an oddity. I can’t believe here in 2015, it’s resurfaced, but so be it! I hope you get a kick out of it.” –Gary Cohen

MIDNIGHT
Dir. John Russo, 1982
USA, 91 min.

Special thanks to John Russo.

We’re just gonna go ahead and say that if you only see one movie in this marathon (like an idiot)–make it MIDNIGHT.

A teenager runs away from home after her pervo cop stepdad (Laurence Tierney) puts the moves on her. She’s California bound when she meets up with two fellow travelers. Things go from pretty much ok to outright horrible when they stop in a small town and run into a family of Satanists who keep their dead mother in the attic. The paranoia is thick enough to cut with a knife (like a number of throats in the film) and no one is safe as the days run on to that most unholy of holidays – Easter. Cynthia looks great and has a pentagram on her forehead and there’s a lot of blood drinking and people in cages. Also some other truly sadistic and harrowing shit goes down. The film is based on Russo’s novel of the same name and was followed by a sequel–MIDNIGHT 2–many moons later. DO NOT MISS THIS ONE.

GRAVE ROBBERS
A.k.a. Ladrones de Tumbas
Dir. Rubén Galindo Jr., 1990
Mexico, 87 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

Directed by Rubén Galindo Jr. who also made the unbelievable DON’T PANIC, GRAVE ROBBERS concerns a bunch of dumb teens who mess around in a graveyard and summon Satan and get their just desserts. Rather than prattle on about it, it’s probably best to let the copy from the back of the Mexican VHS tell the tale:

“LADRONES DE TUMBAS–It’s about four young boys who pretend to assault the tombs in the cemetery of a small town. But these boys were not aware that this place was surrounded by a strange evil force.

LADRONES DE TUMBAS–will take you to the unknown world of the evil where no human being has ever been able to escape! This time be prepared for the most exciting and violent film. Starring the best actors.”

The ultimate penultimate film for this years Shriek Show in the perfect sandwich between MIDNIGHT and INFERNO VENEZIANO.

INFERNO VENEZIANO presented by Negative Pleasure & Phantasma Disques
A.k.a. Hell of Venice
Dir. Cosmotropia de Xam, 2015
Italy, 65 min.

Negative Pleasure & Phantasma Disques team up to end our marathon with a bang presenting the third part of the ANIMA PERSA trilogy from Cosmotropia de Xam. Waaaaaaaaay back in 2011 Spectacle screened a midnight double feature of ACiD and INAUGURATION OF SNOW WHITE. Negative Pleasure has been killing it lately with double and triple features to coincide with comic releases (FELONY COMICS CRIME SPREE, etc) and this will be a sweet goodnight kiss to wrap up Shriek Show V!

Scientists vanishing and mutating to Zombies. A door to another dimension. A blind woman who keeps a secret. Mysterious surreal connections that prepare an Inferno for the city of gondolas.