Page 138 – Spectacle Theater

DASH SHAW & LIMITED ANIMATION

Posted on October 29, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8TH – 8PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

In conjunction with Comic Arts Brooklyn, cartoonist and animator Dash Shaw (New School) presents an evening of “limited” aka “low budget” animation.

Dash will be showing and discussing some of his own work, like the Sigur Ros video and Sundance selection Seraph, the “fast slideshow” Blind Date 4, and others, plus a bonus cartoon that’s inspired him: the “best episode” of the anime Robotech! Come watch some cartoons on a Friday night. This is not to be missed.

NEKRO WEEKEND

Posted on October 28, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

In the wake of Halloween, as Thanksgiving and the Holiday Season approach, it is not uncommon to feel a sinister wave of nostalgia for late-October’s frightful ceremonies and gleeful celebrations of the macabre.

At Spectacle we understand this feeling—we experience it too, particularly in the wake of our yearly SPECTOBER programming—and that’s why this first weekend of November is dedicated to a tradition of dark desire all too infrequently celebrated in today’s culture: necrophilia.

Also called ‘thanatophilia’ or ‘necrolagnia,’ necrophilia—a word derived from the Greek etymons ‘nekros‘ (“dead”) and ‘philia‘ (“love”)—is the sexual attraction to corpses. A rare yet potent paraphilia, the record of its existence has persisted throughout human history; it can be found in the most ancient of Egyptian and Greek texts as well as in today’s newspaper at your local corner store. Jeffrey Dahmer was a vocal proponent; wild animals love it.

Yet few depictions of necrophilia in popular culture are as humanizing and romantic as those found in pioneering transgressive German filmmaker Jörg Buttgereit’s two “NEKRomantik” films, from 1987 and 1991. With a limited budget and unlimited audacity, Buttgereit depicts marginalized characters without judgement or ridicule, left to their circumstances with a realism and directness that startles, perplexes and remains lodged in the brain.

Join us for two consecutive midnights immediately following All Hallow’s Eve in which we highlight two severe works that feature not only the most sacred act between man and corpse, but groundbreaking and challenging depictions of the extremity of the human condition.

Special thanks to Nico B., Jörg Buttgereit and Cult Epics in their cooperation with this program.

NEKROMANTIK
Jörg Buttgereit, 1987.
West Germany. 71m.
In German with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1ST – MIDNIGHT
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

[TRIGGER WARNING: This film contains scenes of explicit sexual contact, mutilation, rear female nudity, violence, frontal male nudity, dark humor, disembowelment, nihilism, decapitation, deviant sex, depictions of murder, frontal female nudity, a depiction of the actual killing of an animal, ejaculation, mental illness, rear male nudity, criminal mischief, dismemberment, sexual perversion, blood, adult language and necrophilia.]

“What lives that does not live from the death of someone else?” -V.L. Compton

Rob and Betty are a perfect match: they bathe in blood, collect body parts and share a fetish for unresponsive flesh that neither can adequately satisfy for the other. Rob has a dream job working for Joe’s Cleaning Company, removing dead bodies from the scenes of public accidents. One day he brings home the mother lode and the couple’s sexual dynamic is changed forever… but paradise is fleeting.

Upon its release in 1987, NEKRomantik was of course immediately banned in virtually every country that became aware of it (across four separate continents). Although never officially banned in the UK—it even played at a number of film festivals, including Leeds in 2012—it was nevertheless confiscated repeatedly during bootleg video raids and customs inspections.

NEKROMANTIK 2
Jörg Buttgereit, 1991.
Germany. 102m.
In German with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND – MIDNIGHT
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

“I want to master life and death.” -Ted Bundy

Picking up right where its predecessor left off, NEKRomantik 2 continues the saga of Rob and Betty while also focusing on like-minded grave-robber Monika. Once Monika strikes up a romance with Mark, a nebbish man who dubs soundtracks for porn films, the extent to which he is able to understand and tolerate her proclivities is tested.

Boasting a longer run-time and marginally greater production values than NEKRomantik, Buttgereit’s sequel remains, uh, not at all for the squeamish. Considerably higher-profile and therefore more controversial upon release, NEKRomantik 2 was confiscated by Munich police just 12 days after its premiere.

According to an interview with Buttgereit in 2006, “my films are not banned anymore in Germany. They are totally legal now and officially labeled as ‘art.’ We spent two years in court to get my films back on the market.”

In 2009, Hermann Kopp’s terrifying music for both NEKRomantik films—as well as Buttgereit’s 1990 film Der Todesking (The Death King)—was released on the vinyl LP compilation ‘Nekronology,’ released by Aesthetic Records.

NEKROMANTIK 2 (Jörg Buttgereit, 1991) NSFW from Spectacle Theater on Vimeo.

VETERANGEANCE

Posted on October 28, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

They say old soldiers never die… in observance of Veteran’s Day, Spectacle teams up with Blue Underground to present three tales of martial vengeance from beyond the grave. On Veteran’s Day itself, we run the gory classics THE PROWLER and DEATHDREAM back-to-back. They return for an encore presentation on Saturday, November 23, along with UNCLE SAM, presented by filmmaker, Blue Underground CEO, and legendary raconteur Bill Lustig.

DEATHDREAM
Dir. Bob Clark, 1972.
USA. 88 min.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 10:00 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23 – 7:00 PM

He promised he’d come back! Brilliantly directed by Bob Clark (BLACK CHRISTMAS, A CHRISTMAS STORY), DEATHDREAM weaves allegory for Vietnam soldiers returning as PTSD-afflicted heroin junkies with unsettling oedipal conflict by telling the story of a soldier, declared dead, who surprises his grieving family by suddenly returning home. Andy looks and sounds the same, but he isn’t quite right: an emotionless husk, unable to reconnect with his family and friends, and suffering from some unknown physical ailment. Yet it’s not TLC that Andy needs to regain his sense of self, but blood — preferably fresh, human blood, mainlined via syringe — and when Andy’s parents have no choice but to face facts, they are horribly divided as to how to treat their darling boy’s affliction.

Often cited as an overlooked genre classic, DEATHDREAM benefits from a smart script, assured direction, and pitch-perfect performances. As Andy, Richard Backus brings an understated menace to his role that strikes a resoundingly creepy note. It’s effectively contrasted by the outstanding performances of John Marley and Lynn Carlin, recent co-stars of Cassavetes’s FACES, who treat the material with dignity, elevating it to the status of a rare horror film that manages to blend graphic gore with almost overwhelming emotional impact. And as in A CHRISTMAS STORY, Clark directs with a familiar sensitivity to domestic situations and the nuances of suburbia. The result, as genre aficionados have long known, is one of the most well-rounded and affecting masterpieces of horror cinema.

THE PROWLER
Dir. Joseph Zito, 1981.
USA. 89 min.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23 – MIDNIGHT

June 28, 1945: having sent a Dear John letter to her soldier boyfriend, Rosemary attends the Avalon Bay annual graduation with her new squeeze — but before they can hit the punch bowl, a ghastly soldier plunges a pitchfork through the pair. Thirty-fire years later, the town prepares for its first dance since the tragedy: is the trauma due to repeat itself? This standout slasher is noteworthy for being described by legendary make-up artist Tom Savini — whose combat experience is an avowed influence on his work — as his proudest moment. Made at a time when more mainstream slashers were reeling back, THE PROWLER is a shocking bloodbath.

UNCLE SAM
Dir. Bill Lustig, 1996.
USA. 89 min.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23 – 9:30 PM – BILL LUSTIG IN ATTENDANCE!

Re-teaming MANIAC COP director Lustig and screenwriter Larry Cohen, UNCLE SAM is a cult favorite 1997 slasher about a soldier killed by friendly fire during Desert Storm who busts out of his casket to kill flag burners and other unpatriotic types. Bearing Lustig and Cohen’s idiosyncratic blend of social commentary and no shortage of gore, UNCLE SAM is further distinguished by appearances by William Smith, Isaac Hayes, P.J. Soles, and the electrifying Robert Forster.

Mr. Johnny Legend’s TV IN ACIDLAND

Posted on October 28, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

TV IN ACIDLAND
Program 1: In the Beginning… (the birth of “live” TV late 1940s – 1955)
Program 2: The Modern Age (1955 – early ‘70s)
Dir. Johnny Legend, collected footage, 2012
USA, 153 min. with intermission

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 8:00PM
One night only with Johnny Legend in attendance!

GROUCHO MARX AND THE PROFESSOR OF HIPOLOGY
BETTY WHITE’S TIRED HOUSEWIFE BLOOD
MILTON BERLE WIGGLES WILDLY

“A hand-made montage of the most shudderingly strange and awesomely revealing moments early television could offer… the damndest thing you ever saw!” –Boho Beat

Mr. Johnny Legend is a savior of forgotten horror films, wrestling promoter, Rockabilly Hall of Famer, and director of documentaries, improvised happenings, hot tub pornos and collected ephemera. But of all his unruly projects in several decades of haunting Hollywood, Mr. Legend considers TV IN ACIDLAND “undoubtedly the most ambitious and incredibly entertaining of them all. The majority of the footage here has never been shown theatrically and has remained virtually unseen by most viewers for over half a century.”

This astounding time capsule of the golden age of “really live” television is a non-stop collection of classic variety shows, skits, commercials, and indescribable oddities featuring the biggest (and strangest) stars of the era, many making their broadcast debut. It is an unabashed cinematic “love-letter” to the first quarter century of televised insanity!

Starring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Benny, Peter Lorre, Ernie Kovacs, Steve Allen, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Liberace, Groucho Marx, Lucy and Desi, Buster Keaton, Jonathan Winters, Rod Serling, Edward G. Robinson, Judy Garland, Jackie Gleason, James Dean… and many, many more!

PLUS…
Johnny Legend really live and in person to share his personal stories of Hollywood stardom and madness!

EL DEPENDIENTE

Posted on October 27, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

EL DEPENDIENTE
Dir. Leonardo Favio, 1969.
78 min. Argentina.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 7:30 PM

Next month we launch our third annual Best of Spectacle, a look back at some of our highlights from the previous year. In anticipation, we revisit a gem from 2012 that didn’t make last year’s series.

Despite being considered by a handful of Spectacle programmers as one of the greatest movies we’ve ever shown, El Dependiente played to empty houses: here’s your chance to catch up with a guaranteed mindblowing, where-has-this-movie-been-all-my-life experience.

El Dependeinte is the third feature directed by Leonardo Favio, Argentina’s own Gainsbourgian renaissance man with the dual distinction of being a ’60s and ’70s pop icon and accomplished filmmaker. Whereas his first two features bear out of the influence of his mentor, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, and Robert Bresson (and Crónica de un niño solo strongly suggesting Vigo’s Zéro de conduite), El Dependiente is another beast entirely that can perhaps only be compared to the startlingly similar Eraserhead (1977) in its suffocating portrayal of abject dread brutally punctuated with disturbing, absurdist humor.

Walter Vidarte plays the title clerk, who works in a hardware store in a desolate provincial town. He ashamedly finds himself indulging in fantasies of the accidental death of his kind employer so that he one day might inherit the store. Each night on his way home he becomes transfixed by a gorgeous young woman lurking under the street light. His approaching her eventually leads to a string of muted nocturne encounters in the girl’s dilapidated coutryard that grow increasingly anxious under the auspices of her doting, manically overbearing mother.

Filmed in a stark chiaroscuro rife with vast, empty spaces, eerie ellipses and an almost palpable sense of the forlorn curdling into a brooding menace, El Dependiente is, despite its considerable humor and charm, an ever-tightening knot in the stomach and one of the most abstruse, perplexing anti-date movies ever made.

COMMITTED (on 16mm!)

Posted on October 27, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

COMMITTED
Dir. Sheila McLaughlin & Lynne Tillman, 1984
USA, 77 min. 16mm.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 7:30PM – ONE NIGHT ONLY!
MCLAUGHLIN & TILLMAN IN ATTENDANCE FOR Q&A!

Special thanks to the New York Public Library!

My favorite patient, a display of patience,
Disease-covered Puget Sound
She’ll come back as fire, And burn all the liars,
leave a blanket of ash on the ground
“Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” — Nirvana

No one ever came to me and said, “You’re a fool. There isn’t such a thing as God. Somebody’s been stuffing you.” It wasn’t a murder. I think God just died of old age. And when I realized that he wasn’t any more, it didn’t shock me. It seemed natural and right.
From God Dies — Frances Farmer

Frances Farmer was born in Seattle in 1913. The myths surrounding her life are perhaps better known than the details. She was an actress on stage and screen through the mid 1930’s-40s, and was the subject of multiple scandals and sensationalized accounts. Despite her attempts at launching a serious career in the theater, Farmer was often cast as a harlot in B-movies at Paramount Pictures. After arrests for drunk driving and assault, Farmer was involuntarily committed to a mental institution. She spent the next seven years institutionalized, five of those years in Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, WA, receiving insulin shock and shock therapy, and even, rumor has it, a transorbital lobotomy (though there are many deniers and little proof.) Farmer was released in 1950 under her mother’s custody and her full civil rights weren’t restored until 1953.

COMMITTED (1984), co-directed by Sheila McLaughlin and Lynne Tillman, is a narrative film of the story of Frances Farmer. Highly scripted and shot in the style of 40s noirs, McLaughlin and Tillman construct a film narrated by Farmer (played by McLaughlin), in which she tells her side of the story, as “neither victim nor heroine.” COMMITTED focuses on the troubled relationship between Farmer and her mother, and examines social and political norms of the time, including the burgeoning use of psychiatry to cure “undesirables” and “disturbed” women.

The kind of horror we were dealing with was an institutionalized horror, not necessarily the most virulent physical violence, but a different kind of violence, which is the violence against ideas and the violence of the family, or the violence of psychiatry in its treatment of patients. — Lynne Tillman

Directed by Sheila McLaughlin and Lynne Tillman and starring McLaughlin, Victoria Boothby and Lee Breuer, a 16mm print of COMMITTED (1984) will be presented one night only on Tuesday, November 19th, 7:30 PM. McLaughlin and Tillman will be in attendance for a Q&A!

Poster by Barbara Kruger

COMMITTED courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

*Read the full essay God Dies by Frances Farmer, written as a high school senior, which won her First Place and $100 in a contest sponsored by The Scholastic in 1931. “If the young people of this city are going to hell,” one Baptist minister reportedly told his congregation, “Frances Farmer is surely leading them there.”

Other quotes from:
Lamche, Pascale. “Committed Women.” Framework 0.26 (Jan 1, 1985): 39.

Hamilton Morris Presents DEADLY FORCE

Posted on October 24, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

DEADLY FORCE
Dir: Richard Cohen, 1980
USA, 60 mins.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 – 8:00 PM

Special International Drug Day Screening!

Deadly Force is a rare documentary about rampant corruption in the LAPD directed by Richard Cohen. The doc revolves around the controversial 1977 killing of an arctic explorer turned rolicyclidine chemist named Ronald Burkholder who was found nude, masturbating, and stabbing himself with a candelabra in a busy LA intersection…and then fatally shot.

Cohen’s documentary follows the aftermath of Burkholder’s killing through court testimonies by both police officials defending their decision to use deadly force, and Burkholder’s friends and family, accusing the LAPD of brutality, corruption, and constructing a massive cover-up.

Followed by an original short by Hamilton Morris.

THE THIRD ANNUAL SPECTACLE SHRIEK SHOW

Posted on October 22, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – ALL DAY!

For the third year in a row, Spectacle pays humble tribute to one of the most sacred of Halloween traditions – the horror movie marathon – with THE THIRD ANNUAL SPECTACLE SHRIEK SHOW! This year we have another fine spread of various genre staples and a couple wildcards that defy all categorization, a couple special guests and a smattering of shorts, cartoons, promos, tunes, and more to celebrate the best holiday of them all.

As always, we’ll start promptly at noon and keep rolling all through the day and into the witching hour!

Tickets are $25 for the full day or $5 each movie!

THE ABOMINATION
Dir: Max Raven (Bret McCormick), 1986
100 min. USA.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – NOON

Presented by Massacre Video

Someone once said “Texas regional horror is the best regional horror.” It’s a bold statement, but it would be difficult to disagree. With a close community pushing the boundaries in pretty much every aspect of the genre, the output is impressive to say the least. Bret McCormick made THE ABOMINATION on Super-8 and edited it on 3/4″ and the result is a heartfelt, lo-fi, gut munching success. Disconnected sound, hallucinatory loops, chanting, droning, and a world of practical effects pepper this nightmarish vision of the Lone Star state.

Cody’s mother is very sick. Lung cancer, and it’s bad. At least that’s what the seedy televangelist Brother Fogg told her. In fact, she’s so sick that one night – in what can only be deemed a miracle from God – she coughs up the tumor that’s been ailing her. Naturally, she throws it in the trashcan. That night while Cody sleeps, the tumor crawls out of the trash, into his bed…and into his mouth. The tables have turned, as his mother regains her strength, Cody gets worse and worse. He coughs up blood and eventually hacks up a mass of gunk that he hides under his bed. Now, possessed by the titular Abomination, Cody must seek victims to appease his new master. The creature grows and grows until it fills up most of the house, a network of teeth and tentacles, always hungry for more!

THE ABOMINATION is presented by our pals at Massacre Video who have previously presented 555 (at our very first marathon) and DEMON QUEEN – a favorite from last year!

HORROR HOTEL
(aka The City of the Dead)
Dir: John Moxey, 1960.
76 min. UK.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – 2PM

Horror films don’t come much more atmospheric than John Moxey’s dark, fog drenched HORROR HOTEL (The City of the Dead). Shot in Britain and set in the eerie, forgotten Massachusetts town of Whitewood, this tale of witchcraft, murder and ghosts bares a striking structural resemblance to Alfred HItchcock’s radical horror film PSYCHO, released the same year, but combines the narrative rupture of Hitchock’s film with a more familiar set of atmospheric horror tropes taken to their most dreamlike extreme – the result is one of the most gorgeous and unsettling horror films of all time.

Nan Barlow is studying the history of witchcraft and looking to do some firsthand research. Her professor (Christopher Lee) points her toward a small forgotten Massachusetts town, Whitewood, which was the site of witch trials in the 17th century. Nan checks into a ghostly old inn and begins to investigate the story of an accused witch, Elizabeth Selwyn. When Nan doesn’t return from her trip to Whitewood her brother joins forces with a local shop owner and heads to Whitewood for answers.

HORROR HOTEL represents a high point in atmospheric horror, giving Val Lewton a run for his money and standing as an anglo analogue to Bava and Margheriti’s gothic Italo-epics. Moxey’s film is unfailingly assured in composition, pace, tone and design, and stands as an early testament to its creator’s adroitness in handling the creepy and atmospheric supernatural detective story, as Moxey would do again and again throughout the 70s in such paradigms of made for TV horror such as THE NIGHT STALKER and A TASTE OF EVIL.

SPLATTER: ARCHITECTS OF FEAR
Dir: Peter Rowe, 1986
77 min. Canada.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – 4PM

Presented by Slasher // Video

SPLATTER: ARCHITECTS OF FEAR can probably best be described as the DAY
FOR NIGHT of SOV horror. At first glance this no budget curio seems to be a post apocalyptic action fantasy, however it quickly reveals itself to be a behind the scenes documentary about the wild world of SFX splatter wizards. There’s something not quite right about this “documentary” though, and before long it becomes clear the movie we’re behind the scenes of,
does not exist, and characters we’re following are somewhere between the realistically banal and the unbelievably ridiculous – FANG, the hunchbacked, rat-eating Gory Productions mascot.

Is this strange mishmash of narrative vistas intentional? Probably not, but is this
sort of like F FOR FAKE for VHS creeps? DEFINITELY! SPLATTER: ARCHITECTS OF FEAR is an SOV fever dream that satisfies and stultifies on a few fairly interesting levels, AND it’s just really WEIRD and filled with tons of gore, synth and awesome Canadian accents!

Enjoy this absolutely bizarre, meta entry into the SPECTACLE SHRIEK SHOW!

SILENT MADNESS (in 3D!)
Dir: Simon Nüchtern, 1984.
93 min. USA.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – 6PM

Most slasher movies fall somewhere in between bad jazz and good pizza – at their worst they can be an uninspired interpretation of a familiar standard, and at their best they make an art out of filling you up with things that aren’t very good for you. SILENT MADNESS does both…AND IT’S IN 3D! That’s right, hot on the heels of FRIDAY THE 13th PART 3 comes this odd and largely forgotten gem about a homicidal maniac, Howard Johns, who is accidentally released from a nightmarish mental hospital. Once John’s is out he makes a b line to the sorority house where he perpetrated a sepia toned, nail gun massacre years before and it’s up to a no nonsense Doctor, Belinda Montgomery (Man From Atlantis, TONS of other 70s TV), to stop him! Dragon’s Lair, animated axes, steam pipes, sledge hammers, exercise equipment – all are employed in a 3D killing spree that’s a MUST for any 80s horror or slasher fan!

Shot in Staten Island and Jersey City, SILENT MADNESS is an east coast, autumnal slasher with a mean streak. Not surprisingly this grim little film was made by Simon Nuchtern, a sleaze veteran who shot additional footage for the notorious SNUFF (try and shower that one off) and almost compulsively seems to suffuse the proceedings with an unsettling aggression that threatens to transform into something even darker at every turn. SILENT MADNESS has the folkloric tropes which make the genre what it is (the murder turned urban legend, the homecoming, the insane parent), but also enough unique weirdness to make it unforgettable, including some really out of place naturalism thanks to Viveca Lindfors (Creepshow, Exorcist III) and Sydney Lassick (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), looking strikingly similar to a GHOULIE in a Sheriff’s uniform.

ONE dimension’s worth of substance in THREE DIMENSIONS!! (Glasses provided!)

SATAN’S STORYBOOK
Dir: Michael Rider, 1989.
85 min. USA.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – 8PM

Presented by Horror Boobs

What do a well known porn star, the writer of THE HOWLING, and a former back-up dancer for Debbie Gibson have in common?

Satan.

This anthology film follows what is certainly the whiniest version of Our Dark Lord to ever grace the hallowed slabs of analog media. SATAN’S STORYBOOK claims to be 3 stories but that’s including the wraparound. Hey, get it how you can, you know? The first actual story (told to soothe a cranky Satan) is about a serial killer named The Demon of Death who picks his victims at random out of the phonebook (kind of like the William Lustig film RELENTLESS but with different haircuts). He meets his match in the form of a metal babe named Jezebell who summons some demons of her own! The other story is about an alcoholic clown who offs himself and comes face-to-face with Death himself…though not in his traditional form.

SATAN’S STORYBOOK comes to us hot off the presses as out longtime friends and guest programmers – those loveable knuckleheads at Horror Boobs – have just re-released this beauty on glistening white VHS tapes in a fresh new case. Be sure to pick one up!

HEADLESS EYES
Dir: Kent Bateman, 1971.
78 min. USA.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – 10PM

You know how it is for starving artists, right? I mean, look at your clothes. Anyway, it used to be even harder! So hard that some of them turned to a life of crime. This is especially true in the case of Arthur Malcolm. Down on his luck, Arthur is caught robbing an apartment and loses his eye in the process. Once he’s healed he’s out on the streets and, brother, he is HEATED. Arthur sets about on a mad killing spree, gouging out the eyes of his victims with a spoon. He collects the eyes for his artwork, you see. This continues for some time with mixed results.

This film was directed by Kent Bateman, father of Jason and Justine, in the streets of a now long gone version of NYC. According to this film, it was a time when a hooker would approach a man covered in blood in the middle of the day in order to turn a trick. The good old days. In addition to this movie being totally batshit insane with a FIERCE mutant soundtrack, it’s a veritable snapshot of a city as nasty as they come. The performances are hammy and intense, like Easter dinner in a mental institution.

Not to be missed!

THE WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL
????, 1987.
82 min. USA.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – MIDNIGHT

Presented by Alternative Cinema

Chris LaMartina in person!

Is the legendary WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL a heart warming time capsule of Halloween past replete with local commercials, holiday charm, and awkward news anchors? Is it the evidence of a strange and terrifying, occurrence caught on tape almost 20 years ago? Is it a sick hoax? Whatever it is, it’s one of a kind and IT’S ONLY AT THE SPECTACLE SHRIEK SHOW!

Taped off of WNUF TV-28 on Halloween Night, 1987, this strange broadcast follows local news personality Frank Stewart and a team of paranormal researchers as they set out to prove that the abandoned Webber House – the site of ghastly murders – is actually haunted through a fascinating live on-air program featuring shocking EVP recordings and one-of-a-kind Call-In seance.

This is a one of a kind,outrageously fun and unique Halloween treat! Is it real? You be the judge!

“It’s a legendary broadcast. Even though most collectors haven’t even
seen it, they’ve heard about it. With each passing year its cult
status grows.” – Robin Bougie, Cinema Sewer

“Holy crap – I remember this airing when I was a kid! Craziest thing
I’ve ever seen on live TV!” – Eduardo Sanchez, co-creator of The Blair
Witch Project

PRAXIS MAKES PERFECT: THREE FILMS BY MARGARETHE VON TROTTA

Posted on October 22, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

Margarethe von Trotta’s last two films, VISION: FROM THE LIFE OF HILDEGARD VON BINGEN from 2010 and HANNAH ARENDT, released earlier this year, are both portraits of contemplative women. In contrast, this set of three films from the first decade of her career deals with praxis, and courageous women who make the leap to it.

All made in the wake of the revolutionary violence that followed the splintering of the student movement and the extraparliamentary opposition in Germany in the late 1960s, these films represent three different approaches to an analysis of the possibilities this violence opened up and those that it closed off.

They all have a factual basis: THE SECOND AWAKENING OF CHRISTA KLAGES was inspired by the case of a Munich kindergarten teacher who robbed a bank to save her daycare center from debt, and whose 1975 trial a protesting von Trotta was arrested at. THE GERMAN SISTERS, a thinly veiled account of RAF-member Gudrun Ensslin’s relationship with her reformist sister, offers a stark portrayal of Ensslin’s experience in a maximum security prison and her sister’s quest to prove that her controversial death could not have been a suicide. Finally, ROSA LUXEMBURG recounts the life of the fiery orator and revolutionary, her disappointment with the German Socialist Party’s opportunism during the war, her work with Karl Liebknecht leading up to the Spartacist uprising, and her brutal murder during its bloody suppression in 1919.

More than simple attempts to reclaim maligned or abused historical figures, these films can be seen as examinations of the systemic violence embodied in institutions like marriage, rent, legislative bodies, and prisons, and of the more or less revolutionary responses it can prompt.

THE SECOND AWAKENING OF CHRISTA KLAGES
a.k.a. Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages
Dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 1978
West Germany, 89 mins.
In German with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 7:30 PM

To save her kindergarten from being replaced with a strip club, Christa Klages grabs the rentier-bull by the money-horns, acknowledging that real justice is something to be wrested from a reluctant society by force. Let down by a mild, too-honest protestant priest, whose sermon about martyrdom in Brecht’s Mother Courage underlines his own cowardliness, and shadowed by a resentful bank clerk whose smug volunteer police work infuriates the viewer at every turn, Christa finally finds solidarity and tenderness in a forgotten childhood friendship.

THE SECOND AWAKENING is Von Trotta’s first solo film, having collaborated with Volker Schlöndorff on THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM in 1975 and COUP DE GRÂCE in 1976.

Special thanks to MKS Video.

THE GERMAN SISTERS
a.k.a. Die bleierne Zeit, Marianne and Juliane
Dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 1981
West Germany, 102 mins.
In German with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10 – 5:00 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 7:30 PM

DIE BLEIERNE ZEIT gets its title from a poem by Hölderlin and conjures the oppressive atmosphere of postwar Germany, with the bleak and aimless consumer society being built through the “economic miracle” and the heritage of fascism that the majority of Germans were reluctant to address. Its Italian title, ANNI DI PIOMBO, became the phrase used to describe the wave of revolutionary violence and ensuing repression in Italy in the 70s. The overcast skies and modern prison blocks, along with the black and white newsreels of extermination camps and third-world misery that radicalize the Ensslin sisters, make for an overall cinematic texture that is just as leaden as the title promises.

ROSA LUXEMBURG
a.k.a. Die Geduld der Rosa Luxemburg
Dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 1986
West Germany, 120 mins.
In German with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17 – 7:30 PM

It seems to me that this whole madhouse, this moral mire in which we now crawl, can in an instant, as if by magic, be changed into something great.

Almost thirty years before von Trotta cast Barbara Sukowa as famed political philosopher Hannah Arendt, the two of them gave cinematic expression to the life of a revolutionary theorist more impatient to grasp the reins of the historical process. Sukowa’s portrayal of “Red Rosa” is fiery and rousing, and her exhortations for the proletariat to smash the bourgeois order are so emphatic that the crowd should immediately file out of the cinema and do it.

Luxemburg has been invoked as a hero and martyr by many institutional forms of the German left, including the East German Socialist Unity Party and the present-day parliamentary party Die Linke. However, Luxemburg was critical of participation in any form of bourgeois democracy, and her intransigence is underscored in von Trotta’s film.

Lizzie Borden’s WORKING GIRLS

Posted on October 22, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

WORKING GIRLS
Dir. Lizzie Borden, 1986
USA, 93 min.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 10:00 PM

Independent filmmaker Lizzie Borden, director of the underground feminist classic BORN IN FLAMES (1983), directed her next feature WORKING GIRLS in 1986. Taking a more widely accessible approach in style and story structure, WORKING GIRLS follows three prostitutes working in an upscale brothel through one long day at work. The film is told largely through the eyes of Molly (Louise Smith), a woman with an Ivy League education who’s lying to her live-in girlfriend about her new job. Gina plans to open her own beauty salon when she’s saved enough money, and Dawn is a young law student trying to finish her homework in between clients.

Borden spent six months interviewing prostitutes in various economic situations to find out about the conditions in which they worked and how they felt about their jobs. WORKING GIRLS was made partly in response to some feminists’ anti-pornography stance and the Canadian documentary/exposé NOT A LOVE STORY (1981) which condemned pornography and, in Borden’s view, made many women working in the sex industry feel bad about their choices.

In this culture one hears constantly about the sacrifice you have to make for doing prostitution. I’ve been attacked by everyone: by feminists who say, ‘You’re soft-peddling prostitution; prostitution is wrong’; and by spiritual women who say you can’t have all these sexual encounters without doing damage to your soul. But nobody criticizes the forty-hour workweek. Nobody criticizes the fact that for the most part people are trained into positive thinking about jobs that don’t make use of half their talents. There are bad things about prostitution, but they’re not the ones you see in the movies.

Incredibly smart and insighful WORKING GIRLS is a film about a group of women choosing prostitution as a means to support themselves, and it succeeds at expressing a message that is neither pro- nor anti-prostitution. Through its screenplay (co-written with Sandra Kay), direction and camerawork, it reveals sex work as a normal job for many, with long hours, less than desired pay, a ringing phone, and a micro-managey boss (Madam). (Can work ever be sexy?) In addition, it consciously attempts to shift the camera-eye from a male gaze by avoiding voyeuristic approach in the cinematography.

There’s no shot in the film where you see Molly’s body the way a man would frame her body to look at it, except when she’s looking at herself that way…

WORKING GIRLS is the realest movie about sex work (and perhaps work under capitalism) we’ve seen in awhile — by no means an erotic film, it will likely make you blush and laugh awkwardly for its directness.

—

Quotes from Lizzie Borden in “Interview with Lizzie Borden.” Author(s): Scott MacDonald and Lizzie Borden. Feminist Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2, The Problematics of Heterosexuality (Summer, 1989), pp. 327-245.

WORKING GIRLS Dir. Lizzie Borden, 1986 USA, 93 min.

WORKING GIRLS
Dir. Lizzie Borden, 1986
USA, 93 min.