THE WALTER READE THEATER

SCARY MOVIES 2: THE HORROR CONTINUES

Oct 29 - Nov 11, 2004

left: Suspiria

Halloween may be over in November, but we're not done with you yet. We've gone back down to the cellar and found more horror classics, some forgotten and some fondly remembered. We'll be showing two Hammer classics, VAMPIRE CIRCUS and DEMONS OF THE MIND; a prime piece of Italian gothic, THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA; Kathryn Bigelow's 80s landmark, NEAR DARK; Bob Clark's avant-la-lettre slasher film BLACK CHRISTMAS; the 70s British kinkfest VAMPYRES; Sidney J. Furie's terrific THE ENTITY (recently re-configured by avant-garde filmmaker Peter Tcherkassky for his film Outer Space); Robert Mulligan's extraordinarily eerie adaptation of Thomas Tryon's THE OTHER; and two films by Curtis Harrington - his vintage 1971 WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO? and USHER, his beautifully compact new adaptation of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. We'll be waiting for you…

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
Roger Corman, U.K., 1964; 89m
The great Nicholas Roeg shot this sumptuous riff on a tiny little wisp of a Poe story, and it shows. It's one of the most visually ravishing of all the Corman/Poe "collaborations." This time, Vincent Price is Prince Prospero, a practitioner of the black arts and all-around connoisseur of jolly debasement and silken evil, who terrorizes the local citizenry just for fun, and humiliates many of the guests at a masked ball thrown at his castle. Eventually, the "Red Death," the name of the plague laying waste to the area, comes for a visit. The effects of Bergman's cinema weren't lost on Corman, but he had developed his own unique aesthetic - brash and brazen, but also genuinely creepy and disturbing (and not a little indebted to Freud) and, at many moments, genuinely hypnotic.
Fri Oct 29: 3 & 7

THE TOMB OF LIGEIA
Roger Corman, U.K., 1965; 81m
The last of Corman.s Poe adaptations was the only one shot on location in England. Where the rest of the series has a claustrophobic, studio-bound stylization, this film conveys its morbidly macabre sensibility through its exquisitely rundown locations and, as always, the precision of Vincent Price's acting. Verden Fell, grieving over the untimely loss of his young wife behind dark glasses and beneath a head of demonically curly hair, might be the greatest and most nuanced of Price's Poe performances, and it's matched by the unusual delicacy of Corman's direction (the slow motion dream sequence is a knockout). As always, the script takes considerable liberties with the original, following Corman's usual inclination to move away from Poe and toward Freud. But Robert Towne's adaptation is inventive and idiosyncratic, and this is a remarkably powerful film, building to an explosive climax . De Niro and Keitel watch a little bit of it in Mean Streets.
Fri Oct 29: 5; Sat Oct 30: 7:30

BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW
Piers Haggard, U.K., 1970; 100m
This beautifully controlled, stunningly visualized film remains one of the great works of British horror. In 17th-century England, a peasant comes across a piece of a skull, with an eyeball and clump of hair still attached, lying in a field. He shows it to "the Judge" (Patrick Wymark, who died of a heart attack right after this film was completed), who dismisses insinuations of witchcraft when the skull disappears. Not long after, something inexplicable occurs: the fiancée of his old friend's nephew has her hand replaced by a claw. Soon, a series of increasingly disturbing events, including a hair-raising rape and murder, start occuring. A truly eerie work of finely controlled terror and the most exquisite artistry, BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW was made by Hammer studio rival Tigon as a follow-up to its earlier Witchfinder General, but this is the superior film. With Linda Hayden in a stunning performance as Angel Blake, the Satanic young ringleader, and extraordinary cinematography by John Coquillon. This is the uncut version.
Fri Oct 29: 9; Sat Oct 30: 1:30; Sun Oct 31: 7

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT a.k.a. THE DEVIL'S BRIDE
Terence Fisher, U.K., 1967; 96m
Hammer Studios's first and virtually sole foray into the occult anticipated the Satanic horror boom that would be ignited a year later by Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. Expertly adapted from Dennis Wheatley's novel by I Am Legend author and horror screenwriter Richard Matheson, and directed by Hammer's leading in-house director, Terence Fisher, at the top of his game, it stars horror icon Christopher Lee (playing the good guy for once) as occult expert Duke De Richleau, who uncovers and does battle with a Satanic cult (led by Charles Gray at his most suave) in 1920s rural England. In his A Heritage of Horror, critic David Pirie writes that the classic setpiece in which De Richleau and his skeptical allies retreat to the safety of a pentacle drawn on a library floor to face down a series of satanic visitations "rediscovers aspects of mythology which the cinema has completely overlooked."
Sat Oct 30: 3:30 & 9:15

BURN, WITCH, BURN!
Sidney Hayers, U.K., 1962; 90m
A terrifically sharp, wonderfully subtle adaptation of Fritz Leiber's novel Conjure Wife. Peter Wyngarde is the rising academic superstar and professed rationalist who discovers that his wife Tansy (in a great performance by Janet Blair) is not only superstitious but a devotee of the black arts, the practice of which she picked up in Jamaica. Over her objections, he orders her to destroy her skulls, spiders and other assorted fetish objects. And not so slowly, their life starts to fall apart . and we slowly learn that witchcraft permeates their quiet little community. One of the forgotten highlights of 60s horror, in a gorgeous new print.
Sat Oct 30: 5:30; Sun Oct 31: 3

HALLOWEEN
John Carpenter, U.S., 1979; 92m
The film that proved to be the turning point in John Carpenter,s career, breathed new life into the genre, triggered a hundred imitations, and did for babysitting what Psycho did for showers. The premise is a pure simplicity: a killer escapes from an asylum on Halloween night and returns to small-town America to do what he does best. A shrewd distillation and revitalization of familiar material, the film's stroke of genius is to replace the psychological baggage inherited from Psycho with an authentic sense of the uncanny. Every element is in sync- from the brilliant deployment of 'scope framing, Steadicam, and haunting minimalist score (composed by Carpenter himself) to the performances by Jamie Lee Curtis, screaming her lungs out as the prototypical "final girl," and the great Donald Pleasance playing it dead straight as the asylum psychiatrist in grim pursuit of the relentless bogeyman known as Michael Myers.
Sun Oct 31: 5 & 9

THE OTHER
Robert Mulligan, U.S., 1972, 16mm; 108m
Robert Mulligan specialized in warm, lovingly embroidered visions of the American past, like Summer of '42 and To Kill a Mockingbird. In this unjustly forgotten 1972 film, based on the novel by former actor Thomas Tryon, he put his considerable talent to work on more disturbing material. The year is 1935. Two twin brothers, Niles and Holland (Chris and Martin Udvarnoky), live on a farm - one is nice, the other is not so nice. Their father has just died, and their bereaved mother rarely leaves their room. Amid the strange adult world around them, they have only each other for company. And they spend their time playing "The Game," which their grandmother (Uta Hagen) has taught them: It allows them to see strange events happening elsewhere. To reveal more about THE OTHER would be to give away one of the most intricate plots of the era. Suffice it to say that this is a uniquely disturbing film, with an acute sense of menace. Beautifully shot, in Wyeth-esque tones, by the great Robert Surtees.
Mon Nov 1: 2:15 & 6:45

BLACK CHRISTMAS
Bob Clark, Canada, 1974, 16mm; 98m
Bob Clark made two of the best horror films of the 70s, the underrated Death Dream (shown in our 2002 edition of Scary Movies) and this still-unsung classic. A group of girls staying in their sorority house on Christmas Eve (Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin of SCTV fame) are terrorized by a series of obscene phone calls, each more ominous and threatening than the last. Before long, the caller is in their midst. This film provided the standard blueprint for the slasher genre, complete with killer-POV shots and perfectly timed shocks. But few were this carefully crafted. Beautifully shot in lustrous dark tones by Reginald Morris, who also worked with Clark on A Christmas Story - a whole different kind of Christmas movie.
Mon Nov 1: 4:30 & 9

VAMPYRES
Jose Larraz, U.K., 1974; 87m
This little seen and genuinely haunting cult film is a key milestone in the emergence of the 1970s "erotic horror" subgenre, as pioneered by Jess Franco. Fellow Spaniard Larraz came to England to direct this tale of murdered bisexual lovers Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska), who return from the dead to lure passing motorists to their deserted country mansion for sex romps that soon turn into bloodbaths. A far cry from Hammer's lurid grand guignol, VAMPYRES's subdued, claustrophobic atmosphere, frissons of transgressive sex and violence, and mundane rural torpor form a strange brew.
Tue Nov 2: 4 & 9

WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO?
Curtis Harrington, U.K., 1971; 91m
Curtis Harrington has had one of the most fascinating careers in Hollywood. He started in the West Coast avant-garde scene of the 40s and 50s, became an assistant to Jerry Wald in the late 50s, and made his own first feature, the wonderful Night Tide, in the early 60s. Since then, he's had a journeyman's life, moving from medium-budget horror to television. Every Harrington film betrays a delicately tuned visual imagination and a wonderfully playful intelligence. In the early 70s, he made two of his best films, back to back gothic psychodramas with Shelley Winters. In this one, a variation on Hänsel and Gretel set in 1920s England, she invites two children from the local orphanage (Chloe Franks and Mark (Oliver) Lester) to her house, only to confine and terrorize them. A beautifully crafted film, with a nice turn by Ralph Richardson as a phony psychic who tries to make contact with Winters's long-lost daughter. Unofficially rewritten by Gavin Lambert. Followed by
USHER
NY Premiere
Curtis Harrington, U.S., 2002; 40m
Harrington's homemade, and intensely personal, update of the Poe story. The filmmaker himself plays Roderick Usher, re-imagined as a venerable poet, visited by a young man named Truman Jones (Sean Nepita) who wants to learn his secrets. The house itself is a grand old Los Angeles mansion, but the sense of decay so central to the original is contained in the small details rather than in the house itself: the faded grandeur of an artist living in his own private, mummified world (somewhat reminiscent of Tennessee Williams); the faces of Usher and his sister Madeleine (also played with biting intelligence by Harrington), which resemble those of dolled-up corpses; the feeling of a bygone world conveyed through language, careful art direction and color effects, and stray objects. An exquisitely wry and chilling 40 minutes of cinema, beautifully shot by former Welles collaborator Gary Graver.
Fri Nov 5: 2 & 6:30; Mon Nov 8: 3:15

SUSPIRIA
Dario Argento, Italy, 1977; 95m
The Italian horror maestro's sensational pièce de résistance. An American student (Jessica Harper) arrives at a German dance academy and finds herself trapped in a vortex of murder and the occult. The story is brazenly flimsy, but who cares - Argento discards narrative logic and cranks up the stylistic excess. With its mind-bogglingly graphic violence (e.g. death by razor wire), ultra frenetic hothouse atmospherics and concerted irrationality, the film is a masterpiece of decadent art house sadism and virtuoso technique. There's something for everyone here: a wildly inventive and nerve-jangling expressionist music score courtesy of Argento's prog rock ensemble the Goblins, a fantastically lurid color scheme, exquisite production design, dazzling widescreen cinematography by the great Luciano Tovoli, plus an appearance by weirdo German character actor Udo Kier. Simply one of the greatest horror movies ever made.
Fri Nov 5: 4:30 & 9; Tue Nov 9: 3:30

THE ENTITY
Sidney J. Furie, U.S., 1982; 115m
Starring Barbara Hershey in a tour de force performance, this notorious, truly harrowing shocker has a deeply disturbing premise: A single mother is repeatedly visited, overpowered and sexually assaulted by an invisible being or force. She seeks help from a sympathetic but skeptical psychiatrist (Ron Silver) and eventually turns to a group of university parapsychologists who attempt to investigate these visitations by scientific means. Supposedly based on a true case, the film was picketed by feminists when originally released. And per horror authority David Pirie, "THE ENTITY doesn't emerge as quite as one-dimensionally nasty as its synopsis suggests. The film's men are uniformly creepy, and its heroine so strong and sympathetic, that apart from a couple of unpleasant moments, the story seems less like horror than a feminist parable, especially when Hershey is reduced to a laboratory subject with her home re-created in the psychology department."
Sat Nov 6: 2 & 6:15

NEAR DARK
Katherine Bigelow, U.S., 1987; 95m
Incorporating the iconography of the Western and the cross-country chase thriller, Katherine Bigelow's action-packed revisionist horror movie envisages a gang of pistol-packing vampire outlaws cruising the highways of the modern Midwest in an RV. After one of them falls for a fresh-faced farm boy and infects him with the vampire curse, this makeshift family kidnaps the hapless youth and attempts to initiate him into the joys of bloodsucking. Bigelow's handling of the setpieces is typically gutsy, and she imbues the narrative with a lyrical, melancholy tone. Lance Henrickson is in top form as the head of the family but Bill Paxton steals the movie as the mocking, trash-talking redneck vampire.
Sat Nov 6: 4:15 ¶& 8:30

VAMPIRE CIRCUS
Robert Young, U.K., 1971; 87m
One of the best and most imaginative of the late Hammer films. After an enthralling prologue in which a 19th-century Serbian vampire count with a taste for child abduction places a curse on a town just before receiving the proverbial stake through the heart, the action jumps 15 years: The village, now in the grip of an outbreak of plague, is visited by a circus troupe. Its performers entertain the locals with their extraordinary powers - including the ability to transform themselves into wild beasts - and their animal magnetism soon draws the local girls. Strong on atmosphere and eroticism, it features notable turns by Adrienne Corri as the gypsy woman and Thorley Walters as the town's burgmeister. Trivia fans note: The circus strongman is played by Dave Prowse, who would later go on to play Darth Vader in Star Wars.
Please Note: We regret that the print of this film is very faded.
Sun Nov 7: 2 & 6

THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA aka L'AMANTE DEL VAMPIRO
Renato Polselli, Italy, 1960; 85m
Italian cinema's peculiarly delirious approach to the horror genre more or less began with Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava's 1957 I Vampiri, and the template was fully set three years later with Bava's extraordinary La Maschera del Demonio, better known here as Black Sunday. This wonderfully atmospheric film, its dreamlike potency only accentuated by its low budget and cartoonish cast, is one of the best of the many films that came in Bava's wake. Luisa, Luca and Francesca are, of course, lost in a forest, and they walk into an apparently deserted castle, still inhabited by Countess Olga and her servant, who are, in reality…vampires! The buxom, blank-faced starlets really get a workout (the "ballet" scenes are worth the price of admission alone), and there's also real filmmaking intelligence at work here, as in the scene in which a vampire's funeral is shot from the point of view of the body, a nice steal from Dreyer.
Sun Nov 7: 4 & 8; Thurs Nov 11: 3:30

DEMONS OF THE MIND
Peter Sykes, U.K., 1972; 89m
Hammer Films was on the verge of bankruptcy when it made this unusually stylish, complex 1972 film. A baron named Zorn, who lives in a sprawling mansion in the countryside, engages the service of a psychiatrist (the great Patrick Magee) to examine his children (Shane Briant and Gillian Hills) for traces of insanity. The doctor walks into a strange psychological netherworld, a gothic roundelay between the paranoid father and his son and daughter, who are kept prisoner in their own household. Few films that came out of the Hammer factory were this stylish, subtle, or structurally bold. Written and directed, respectively, by Christopher Wicking and Peter Sykes, the same team responsible for Venom and To the Devil a Daughter. This was the last film ever shot by the great veteran cinematographer Arthur Grant, who also shot The Tomb of Ligeia and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb.
Mon Nov 8: 6; Thurs Nov 11: 9

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