Here's where you can keep track of all the exciting stuff being brought to you by Dave and Eon's Secret Psychotronic Film Society.
Where: Brattle Theatre
When: 3 January 1999
Whose Fault: DESPFS
Here's the deal. The Brattle Theatre is showcasing all the Universal Studio classic horror films in all new 35mm prints. It'll be great.
One regular price movie ticket will get you in for a consecutive double feature. But wait! There's more!
An entire marathon pass is $15 if purchased in advance. That's six movies (count 'em, 6!) for one low price.
Is this gonna be great or what?
So, RSVP early to this one. If we get enough people commiting to going, we're going to call the Brattle and see about getting a special DESPFS Group Rate. We can't garuntee that they'll give us a discount, but we can garuntee that you won't get a discount if we don't know you're coming.
As an added note, remember that this is being shown at the Historic Brattle Theatre. This theatre is so old, it was built before the invention of the inclined plane, which means we gotta sit up in the front row or two to stand any chance of enjoying this marathon. Get there early! Be outside the theatre by 12:30.
OK, that about covers it. Come and ring in 1999 with your pals, Dave and Eon.
Here's the schedule. Indented text is excerpted from the Brattle schedule.
This is really one of the classic monsters. Some big huge dead guy walking around. How cool is that?
And Frankie's quite the fashion plate. I ask you: where were flat tops and platform shoes before this guy showed up? Nowhere. And is he dead? I thought he was re-animated...
James Whale, the director of this legendary film, brought together the stylistic elements of German Expressionist filmmaking and the grand tradition of the Hollywood melodrama to create a box office sensation and one of the founding films of the Universal Horror era. Colin Clive's intense Dr. Frankenstein reanimates a reconstituted corpse with the brains of a madman, which causes some problems for the local villagers.
I never really got what makes some dead guy wrapped up in gauze scary, but I think it has something to do with a curse. Anyway, come find out with us.
I dunno. I think it's scarier than a dead guy wrapped up in taffeta, for example...
A bandage dragged across the floor. A strange shadow on the wall. An ancient hand reaching from the darkness. These are the brilliantly chilling images that create the suspense in this film, one of the spookier of the Universal Horror cycle, by director Karl Freund ("Mad Love"), cinematographer on "Dracula", "Metropolis", and "Key Largo".
This will be worth seeing if only to see how 1933 special effects handle an invisible man.
Yet another wonderful horror/black comedy from director Whale, "The Invisible Man" made a star of Claud Rains who uses his expressive voice to great effect as a scientist driven mad by the invisibility serum which he created and drank.
No, it's not a biography of a disk jockey, and no, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Michael J. Fox. The one teeny, tiny little photo in the Brattle schedule shows that the make-up job on the in this movie is much better than anything the later Hollywood remakes ever did.
Besides, how cool are dundrearies?
Probably the most compelling and sympathetic of the Universal monsters, Lon Chaney Jr.'s werewolf ignores the gypsy warnings and ends up tragically cursed to terrorize the Welsh countryside when "the moon is pure and bright."
THE classic horror story. This is it. Don't spell it "vampyre" or Bela's gonna bite ya.
The Beyond is THE classic horror story, but I won't get into that again...
A wonderfully macabre vision and, along with "Frankenstein", the defining film of the Universal Horror cycle. Lugosi campaigned mecilessly for the part of the nasty old count and succeeded in raising himself and the character to the status of horror legends.
AAAAIIIGHHHHHHHHH! Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod
No, don't panic. It's not that Black Cat. Really. We wouldn't do that to you. More to the point, we wouldn't do that to ourselves.
shriek! scream! warble oof!
Really. Look, it's got Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in it, so there's at least two people in it who can almost act a little bit in a tortured, stilted kinda way, which right there puts it miles above that other debacle with the same name.
A vengeful psychiatrist (Lugosi) seeks out the architect and devil-worshipper (Karloff) who betrayed his country and destroyed his life. A brilliant crew including director Ulmer ("Detour"), cinematographer John Mescall ("Bride of Frankenstein"), and art director Charles Hall ("Frankenstein", "Dracula") create a macabre masterpiece set in a remarkable Bauhaus style mansion. Features an unforgettable scene where Lugosi threatens to skin Karloff alive.
See? This one looks like it's even got a plot and just
possibly a tiny bit of character development. IT'S NOT THE SAME
MOVIE, OK?
Eon, you can release your choke hold on me now. Please.
