Halloween on Screen
October 18-November 4
This year's offering of Halloween-time horror films includes the annual screening of NOSFERATU, this year with live musical accompaniment by Andrew Simpson.
PLUS: The Silver Spring Zombie Walk returns from the grave, with Dan O'Bannon's cult classic, THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD! Perennial favorite GHOSTBUSTERS, screened in 70mm! A 50th anniversary screening of Robert Wise's haunted house classic THE HAUNTING! And a salute to Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's now-complete magnum opus: the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy!
And the horror doesn't end with Halloween this year—it continues through November, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the annus horribilis of 1973, the year of landmark chillers THE EXORCIST, THE WICKER MAN, DON'T LOOK NOW and many more.
The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy
A salute to Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's now-complete magnum opus: the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy! (And with apologies to Krzysztof Kieślowski's magisterial "Three Colors" trilogy.) In addition to perennial Halloween favorite SHAUN OF THE DEAD (the one that started it all, with Nick Frost enjoying a blood-red strawberry Cornetto ice cream novelty), presenting the uproarious maverick-cops-in-rural-England farce HOT FUZZ (for the boys in blue, the blue Cornetto "original") and sci-fi spoof THE WORLD'S END (in honor of the little green men of lore, the "mint-choc-chip").
THE WORLD'S END
For Gary King (Simon Pegg) and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost) it was supposed to be the ultimate reunion: a boozy quest to complete the epic pub crawl across their hometown of Newton Haven that they left unfinished twenty years ago. But they didn't count on the alien invasion and robot apocalypse beginning that night, before they can reach their final destination: the World's End pub! Uproarious, explosive and surprisingly heartfelt, THE WORLD'S END makes for a proper capper to the epic tomfoolery of the "Cornetto Trilogy." Co-starring Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Paddy Considine and Rosamund Pike.
DIR/SCR Edgar Wright; SCR Simon Pegg; PROD Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Nira Park. UK, 2013, color, 109 min, DCP. RATED R
Fri, Oct 18, 11:30; Sat, Oct 19, 11:30
SHAUN OF THE DEAD
A surprise hit in 2004 and an enduring cult item since, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's "rom-zom-com"—a romantic comedy, with zombies— remains one of the best examples of the horror-comedy hybrid genre. Dumped by his girlfriend, slacker appliance salesman Pegg is so down in the dumps that he fails to notice the zombie plague taking over his London neighborhood until one pops up in his backyard. Fortunately, he and his couch-potato flatmate Nick Frost prove to be ace zombie dispatchers, and round up their remaining loved ones to make a final stand at their local pub, the Winchester.
DIR/SCR Edgar Wright; SCR Simon Pegg; PROD Nira Park. UK/France, 2004, color, 99 min, 35mm. RATED R
Fri, Oct 25, 10:30; Sat, Oct 26, 12 midnight; Thu, Oct 31, 10:00
HOT FUZZ
Stabbed in the back by his superiors, driven London cop Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is relegated to the bush leagues–the picture-postcard-perfect village of Sandford. There, he's partnered with inept-but-eager Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), the son of the local Inspector (Jim Broadbent). However, as a series of grisly accidents disturbs the idyllic village, Angel becomes convinced that something is rotten in Sandford. And it will take all of Angel's cop smarts, and everything Butterman learned from his countless viewings of BAD BOYS II, to take the bad guys down. Co-starring Timothy Dalton, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy, Rafe Spall and Olivia Colman.
DIR/SCR Edgar Wright; SCR Simon Pegg; PROD Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Nira Park. UK, 2007, color, 121 min, 35mm. RATED R
Fri, Nov 1, 11:30; Sat, Nov 2, 11:30
THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
The Return of the Silver Spring Zombie Walk!
They're back from the grave and ready to party!
"Brains...more brains!" Hapless warehouse employees Frank (James Karen) and Freddy (Thom Matthews) release a toxic nerve gas from a long-forgotten canister containing a military experiment gone wrong, and soon have a reanimated cadaver on their hands. But their effort to destroy the shambling threat make matters much worse, polluting the atmosphere and creating an acid rain that soon soaks...the graveyard. This cult classic from legendary screenwriter-turned-director Dan O'Bannon (ALIEN, TOTAL RECALL, DARK STAR) is overflowing with outlandish gore, eye-popping visuals and lots of laughs, set to a rockin' soundtrack featuring The Cramps, The Damned, Roky Erickson, T.S.O.L. and, fittingly, The Flesh Eaters. Costarring Don Calfa and scream queen Linnea Quigley.
DIR/SCR Dan O'Bannon; SCR Rudy Ricci, Russell Streiner, from the book by John Russo; PROD Tom Fox. US, 1985, color, 91 min, 35mm. RATED R
THE HAUNTING
50th Anniversary!
"Scandal, murder, insanity, suicide...the history of Hill House had everything I wanted. It was an evil house from the beginning...a house that was born bad." Robert Wise's iconic haunted house film, based on Shirley Jackson's novel "The Haunting of Hill House," still sets the standard for atmospheric fright-making, inducing the viewer to imagine more than what's shown. A team of paranormal activity investigators, including anthropologist Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), two psychics–the brassy, lesbian Theodora (Claire Bloom) and shy, retiring Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris), a powerful, but highly suggestible, empath–and the mansion's potential heir, playboy Luke Sannerson (Russ Tamblyn), set up camp in the house, the first guests the house has had in years. But will they become the house's latest victims?
DIR/PROD Robert Wise; SCR Nelson Gidding, from the novel "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson. US/UK, 1963, b&w, 112 min, 35mm. NOT RATED
Thu, Oct 31, 5:15; Sun, Nov 3, 7:00; Mon, Nov 4, 5:15
GHOSTBUSTERS
In 70mm!
"When there's something strange in the neighborhood, who you gonna call?" Released in 1984, GHOSTBUSTERS became a record-setting box office smash, a summer movie benchmark that established the template for how to blend special effects with comedy to create imaginatively escapist adventure. In a fortuitous convergence of then-red-hot comic talent, director/producer Ivan Reitman sure-handedly guides actors/authors Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd's script, a winning vehicle for top-billed Bill Murray, while supporting players Sigourney Weaver, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Rick Moranis contribute memorable moments of hilarity.
DIR/PROD Ivan Reitman; SCR Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis. US, 1984, color, 105 min, 70mm. RATED PG
Thu, Oct 31, 7:45; Sat, Nov 2, 11:45 a.m.; Sun, Nov 3, 1:00
NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY OF HORROR [Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens]
Restored 35mm Print!
Live musical accompaniment by Andrew Simpson
Casting a long and terrifying shadow over the genre, German silent film master F. W. Murnau's uncredited appropriation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" set the standard for all vampire flicks to come. Max Schreck's monstrous Count Orlok is singularly frightening, repulsive and beastly, where Bela Lugosi was courtly and Christopher Lee seductive.
DIR F. W. Murnau; SCR Henrik Galeen, from the novel "Dracula" by Bram Stoker; PROD Enrico Dieckmann, Albin Grau. Germany, 1922, b&w/hand-tinted color, 85 min, 35mm. NOT RATED
Tickets $15/$12 AFI Members
No passes accepted.Fri, Nov 1, 7:30; Sat, Nov 2, 7:30
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
Restored 35mm Print!
Live musical accompaniment by Andrew Simpson
A vengeful, hideously deformed composer (Lon Chaney) prowls the depths of the Paris Opera House, appearing only when his love for the beautiful young singer Christine (Mary Philbin) can be stifled no longer. Lon Chaney, "the Man of a Thousand Faces," created one of his most iconic and haunting grotesqueries in this hugely influential gothic melodrama. Print restored in collaboration with David Shepard and Serge Bromberg.
DIR Rupert Julian; SCR Elliott J. Clawson, Raymond L. Schrock, from the novel "Le Fantôme de l'Opera" by Gaston Leroux; PROD Carl Laemmle. US, 1925/1929, b&w/tinted color/two-strip Technicolor, 92 min, 35mm. NOT RATED
Tickets $15/$12 AFI Members
No passes accepted.
Fri, Nov 1, 9:45; Sat, Nov 2, 9:45