Thursday, October 01, 2015

Spooky Movies At The Nightlight Cinema

The Nightlight Cinema is a small indie movie theater in downtown Akron, OH. I've been there a couple of times and it's really cool. During the month of October they will be showing some spooky movies. Check their website for times, tickets, & more. Here's the line-up --

GOODNIGHT MOMMY
In the heat of the summer lays a lonesome house in the countryside where nine year old twin brothers await their mother’s return. When she comes home, bandaged after cosmetic surgery, nothing is like before and the children start to doubt whether this woman is actually who she says she is. What ensues is a terrifying observational struggle with fatal consequences on par with THE SHINING and DEAD RINGERS.





THE WICKER MAN
Long considered one of the very cult-iest of cult horror films, The Wicker Man is Robin Hardy’s celebrated thriller of pagan worshippers running amuck on a remote Scottish island. Seen for decades only in mutilated copies, this new 40th anniversary restoration by StudioCanal is the culmination of a long search for the complete director’s cut. After receiving an anonymous letter about a missing 12-year-old girl, devoutly Christian cop Edward Woodward travels by seaplane to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate. But the islanders welcome neither his badge nor religious devotion, for laird of the isle Christopher Lee and his devoted followers worship only the pagan gods of old – and those gods demand a sacrifice! Attempting to chase down clues, Howie catches on to the pagan culture that prevails – couples have sex publicly, and children learn about phallic symbols – all things that deeply offend the devoutly Christian Howie. Those acts seem relatively innocent once a series of photographs brings him to the conclusion that children are being sacrificed for the island’s harvest. Woodward fears for the missing girl’s life and follows every possible lead to find her – despite the islanders’ interference – before she becomes a human sacrificial lamb at the fast-approaching May Day festival, leading to a shocking, and quite “un-festive,” surprise for our straight-laced hero!



THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY
Can anyone survive the demented marauding zombies in… THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY?

A New York professor moves out to the sticks to pick up the work of a colleague who got into a bit of a Shining situation when he murdered his mistress and then killed himself. Undeterred by his friend’s grotesque end, the good doctor packs up the wife and kid and moves into a dilapidated mansion that comes complete with a basement door that’s been nailed shut and a ghostly young girl that constantly tells everyone to get the hell out of there.

Brutal and borderline incomprehensible, even by the loose standards of Italian horror, The House by the Cemetery closes out director Lucio Fulci’s The Gates of Hell trilogy, the director’s loose collection of atmospheric apocalyptica (The other films are The Beyond and The City of The Living Dead). Set atop a wintry hill, constantly swept in fog, The House by the Cemetery passes along like a dream. Slick with rot, the particulars of its motives and story fade away in favor of atmosphere and imagery.



ZOMBIE
This audaciously disgusting spectacle from the late master of gruesome horror, Lucio Fulci, was posited as a semi-sequel to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which was released in Italy as Zombi.

Tisa Farrow and a group of vacationing tourists travel to an island where they find a doctor (Richard Johnson) who is attempting to cure a condition that reanimates the dead. Things quickly get out of control as undead Spanish conquistadors crawl from their graves hungry for human flesh. The nauseatingly graphic set-pieces by Gianetto de Rossi include a close-up of a woman’s eye being pierced by a large shard of wood and a zombie fighting a Great White shark underwater. This relatively well-made shocker was enormously popular worldwide and led to the zombie-gore film becoming the dominant motif of 1980s Italian horror.



THE DEAD NEXT DOOR
The neighbors are dropping by for dinner... and YOU'RE on the menu!

Utilizing over 1,500 zombie extras, Akron-based director, J.R. Bookwalter, began shooting THE DEAD NEXT DOOR in 1985; it took him four years to complete what is still one of the largest Zombie film productions ever made, and it all took place right here in Akron. The film follows a group called the Zombie Squad whose mission is to decimate the onslaught of a swelling Zombie population, all while fending off a religious cult obsessed with saving them.

Celebrating a 25th anniversary in 2015, THE DEAD NEXT DOOR has been resurrected for the first time ever in glorious HD, restored to all of its blood-splattered glory from a 2K scan of the original Super-8mm film elements.



CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD
[City of the Living Dead is a] surreal Italian gutmuncher from gore-maestro Lucio Fulci! A priest commits suicide and unwittingly opens the gateway to hell. The rotting dead rise from their graves to feed on the living in gruesome fashion, while a psychic and a journalist attempt to stop the rancid carnage. This is Lucio Fulci at his finest, so prepare yourself for zombie killing, head drilling, intestine spilling mayhem! Powered by Fabio Frizzi’s creepy soundtrack and top notch special effects.



THE BEYOND
A remote and cursed hotel, built over one of the seven gateways to Hell, becomes a yawning malevolent abyss that begins devouring both the bodies and the souls of all who enter in a graphic frenzy of gory crucifixions, chunkblowing chain-whippings, eyeball impalements, sulphuric acid meltdowns, flesh-eating tarantulas, throat-shredding demon dogs and ravenous bloodthirsty zombies. The Beyond is a towering achievement in hair-raising, mind-bending cinematic terror!



THE MONSTER SQUAD
Young kids form a club that is devoted to monsters but soon get more than they bargained for when Count Dracula adjourns to Earth, accompanied by Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy and Gillman. The uglies are in search of a powerful amulet that will grant them power to rule the world. The only souls daring enough to stand in their way? Our heroes, the Monster Squad! With Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, Stephen Macht, Tom Noonan (as Frankenstein’s Monster) and Duncan Regehr (as Dracula).



THE SHINING
Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece about the Torrance family, holed up for the winter as the caretakers of the Overlook Hotel, is intense, stunning, and downright scary!

It’s full of now-classic horror film moments, from ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY to “Heeere's Johnny!,” REDRUM, and those creepy twins, but it never feels clichéd or outplayed; it’s the kind of horror movie that ages well. The terrifying imagery and sounds only becoming stronger as the years go by.

This is vintage Jack from back when he was actually crazy, so grab a hold of something, sit back and get ready to be entranced and horrified by Kubrick's THE SHINING.



The main library in downtown Akron used to show spooky movies every Thursday in October. But, this year there is only one Halloween related movie on October 22.

NIGHT MONSTER
A decaying mansion is the setting for this spine-tingling mystery. Beware when the crickets stop chirping! Starring Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Leif Erickson and Irene Hervey. 73 min. Shown in association with The Nightlight Cinema. Introduction and discussion afterward.

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