Scary Movies: 30 Years of Horror

October 18 - 31, 2002

at left: ring

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The horror genre has always been the testing ground in cinema for the wildest stylistic flights of fancy, the most intrepid explorations of human behavior at its most extreme. Just in time for Halloween, we've scoured the globe in search of the scariest movies we could find from the last 30 years. Many of these films are overlooked, forgotten, rarely seen, or known only to the most devoted cultists. All of them are guaranteed to shake you up. We'll be including HORROR EXPRESS, featuring one of the last and greatest teamings of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing; Andrzej Zulawski's hair-raising POSSESSION; Canadian master Bob Clark's potent and deeply frightening DEATHDREAM; LEMORA, Richard Blackburn's 1974 low-budget classic that must be seen to be believed, a one-of-a-kind film of mythic, almost primitive power. And, of course, the immortal RING cycle…and we don't mean Wagner.

Also, in an ongoing partnership with The New York Times, we're presenting an all-horror installment of The Next Generation of Film from October 18 through 20. Read more about this program here.

Programmed by Kent Jones & Gavin Smith.

Thanks to Roberta Nordman (The New York Times), Maitland McDonagh, Giulia d'Agnolo Vallan, Bob Clark, Gary Sherman, Daniel Bird, Dennis Bartok.

Air travel compliments of American Airlines.

PRINCE OF DARKNESS
John Carpenter, U.S., 1987; 102m
One of Carpenter's most underrated movies, and also one of his scariest. In the basement of a deserted L.A. church, a priest (Donald Pleasance) discovers a vat of liquid that "contains" the Devil's son and asks for help from a team of graduate science students. Whoever comes into direct contact with the liquid is enlisted in an army of the undead, preparing for the coming of Satan. Carpenter's exquisite sense of pace and slow build up make for an altogether terrifying experience, never more so than during the scene when one of Satan's Zombies stands before a mirror and calls out to his father. With Jameson Parker, Victor Wong, and, in a small role, Alice Cooper.
Fri Oct 18: 2 pm & 6:15 pm

THE THING
John Carpenter, U.S., 1982; 109m
John Carpenter’s 1982 version of the Howard Hawks-produced classic is not so much a remake as a whole new organism, cloned from the same literary DNA (John W. Campbell, Jr.’s original story "Who Goes There?"). Where the Hawks/Christian Nyby original is fast, breezy, and haunting, Carpenter’s story of a group of scientists, stationed on the arctic circle, slowly infiltrated by an alien parasite that first invades and then assumes the appearance of its host, is utterly and completely terrifying. For anyone who’s seen the film, the mere mention of some of the scenes that Carpenter and his collaborator Albert Whitlock orchestrated - the transforming dog, the screeching blood sample, the upside down walking head - can send shivers down your spine. With an amazing ensemble cast that includes Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Richard Dysart, Donal Moffat, Keith David and Richard Masur. The ominous score is by the great Ennio Morricone.
Fri Oct 18: 4 pm; Tue Oct 22: 1 pm

IT'S ALIVE
Larry Cohen, U.S., 1974; 91m
Larry Cohen made a name for himself in television during the 60s, and he had an astonishing feature debut with the 1972 Bone, followed by two blaxploitation films, Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem, its sequel. But the film that really put him on the map was this 1974 classic, as terrifying as it is politically engaged. John P. Ryan and Sharon Farrell are the Davies, who give birth to what seems to be a beautiful new baby. But when this baby becomes terrified, it kills anything in sight. Did this creature emerge as a monster, or was it branded as one by the world it was born into? Characteristically blunt and no frills, Cohen's film is also a deeply unsettling experience. With a nerve-shredding score by the great Bernard Herrmann.
Sat Oct 19: 1 pm
Thurs Oct 24: 1 pm & 5 pm

HORROR EXPRESS
Eugénio Martin, U.K./Spain, 1972; 90m
Eugénio Martin's underrated 1972 film pairs the two titans of Hammer horror, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Lee is the professor who has found an archaeological specimen that he believes will provide a key to the mysteries of man's origins. Cushing is the doctor he meets on the train from Beijing. Once they're aboard, the specimen thaws and starts killing the passengers. A moody, mysterious and unsettling film with a uniquely eerie energy. With the late, great Telly Savalas as "Kazan the Cossack."
Wed Oct 23: 2 pm & 6:30 pm
Sun Oct 27: 5 pm

POSSESSION
Andrzej Zulawski, France, 1981; 129m
Isabelle Adjani won the Best Actress prize at Cannes for her take-no-prisoners performance as a woman who keeps disappearing for amorous encounters with… well, wait and see for yourself. Sam Neill, as the cuckolded husband trying to make sense of the film's ever more irrational twists and turns, runs Adjani a close second in the Out There performance stakes. Some critics felt this outrageous film was the work of a madman, and though cult Polish filmmaker Zulawski (subject of an upcoming Film Comment article) certainly piles on the blood and guts, and Adjani acts, as one critic put it, "like a terminal rabies victim," make no mistake: this is the ne plus ultra of French cinema's obsession with l'amour fou.
Tue Oct 22: 3:15 pm
Wed Oct 23: 4 pm & 8:30 pm

LEMORA: A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL
Richard Blackburn, U.S., 1972; 90m
LEMORA is the kind of movie you dream of stumbling onto, or finding under a rock: a consistent vision under low-budget, threadbare conditions, without propriety or self-importance. Richard Blackburn's gothic period piece is about the angelic, virginal Lila Lee (street urchin Cheryl Smith), who journeys into the backwoods of Georgia to find her gangster father. She's lured into the home of Lemora (Lesley Gilb), who has plans to liberate Lila from mortality with a bite on the neck. An astonishing movie for the uninitiated, LEMORA plays like a dream into which you're sucked deeper and deeper, straight to a finale that would have made Buñuel's hair stand on end. Blackburn, who wrote (and reportedly co-directed) Paul Bartel's Eating Raoul, plays Lila's minister and guardian.
Thurs Oct 24: 3 pm
Tue Oct 29: 3:30 pm & 7:30 pm

RING
Hideo Nakata, Japan, 1998; 95m
A megahit that spawned multiple sequels, RING is to Japanese horror what The Exorcist was to American cinema's 1970s horror boom. Fusing the traditional ghost story with Cronenberg's Videodrome and emphasizing atmosphere and dread over gore and atrocity, its bewilderingly complex plot circles around the ultimate anti-piracy device: a mysterious videotape that kills anyone who watches it. - Alvin Lu, Film Comment , Jan-Feb 2001
Sat Oct 26: 2 pm
Wed Oct 30: 3 pm

RING 2
New York Premiere
Hideo Nakata, Japan, 1999; 99m
Picking up where RING left off, Nakata's sequel lives up to the first film while taking things several steps further. The disappearance of the original film's heroine, Reiko, and her son, and the continuing series of baffling deaths and paranormal phenomena are investigated by a young woman with clairvoyant powers, as well as by the police, a psychiatric researcher and one of Reiko's TV journalist colleagues. Meanwhile, the terror spreads beyond the original unstoppable "video curse," to reveal a kind of psychic virus that afflicts its catatonic witnesses.
Sat Oct 26: 4 pm
Sun Oct 27: 7 pm

RING 0: BIRTHDAY
New York Premiere
Norio Tsuruta, Japan, 2000; 98m
Set 30 years before the first RING, the third part of the series is a prequel that tells the story of Sadako (memorably played by Yukie Nakama), the young girl with terrifying powers, whose vengeful spirit presides over the events in the earlier two films. A newspaper reporter tracks down the teenage Sadako, who is now a member of a theater troupe. Is she the same cold-blooded murderer her mother was thought to have been? Instead he finds a frail young girl who requires counseling for her nerves. But then a series of mysterious deaths begin claiming members of the troupe….
Sun Oct 27: 9 pm
Wed Oct 30: 1 pm

SHOCK aka BEYOND THE DOOR 2
Mario Bava, Italy, 1976; 92m
The final film by the Italian horror maestro is also one of his best - a tour de force of domestic terror in which a woman suffering from amnesia (played by Daria Nicolodi, wife of Dario Argento, mother of Asia) becomes increasingly traumatized by nightmares and hallucinations. Is her young son possessed by evil forces? What really happened to her first husband, who committed suicide? Is her new husband everything he seems? Or is her mind playing tricks on her? With the simplest techniques and an impeccable sense of timing and mood, Bava keeps you guessing to the very end. With music by Dario Argento's prog-rock collaborators Goblin.
Tue Oct 29: 5:30 pm & 9:30 pm
Wed Oct 30: 7

DEATHDREAM aka DEAD OF NIGHT
Bob Clark, U.S., 1972; 90m
Before he struck it rich with Porky's, Bob Clark made genuinely great horror films, and this 1972 movie is his very best. John Marley and Lynn Carlin, the stars of Cassavetes' Faces, are once again paired as husband and wife in a small American town. One night, they receive a telegram informing them that their son has been killed in Vietnam. A few hours later, there's a knock at the door - Andy (Richard Backus) has come home after all. But is he still alive? Clark and screenwriter Alan Ormsby (who also wrote Paul Schrader's Cat People remake) address the futility of our involvement in Vietnam head-on, with a brilliant equation: spiritual deadness equals physical deadness, and the sense of loss is brought to full, horrifying life. The recurring image of Andy rocking back and forth in his chair, for hours on end, is one of the most resonant in the entire history of horror.
Wed Oct 30: 5 & 9
Thurs Oct 31: 1

THE STONE TAPE
New York Premiere
Peter Sasdy, U.K., 1972, 90m; video
Written by Nigel Kneale, the creator of the classic Quatermass films, this chilling BBC-TV drama continues his exploration of the intersection of scientific inquiry and ancient horror myths. A computer programmer with traces of clairvoyant ability (Jane Asher) joins a team of research scientists working on a project in a country mansion. When their work is obstructed by what appears to be a ghost in a cellar room, the hard-driving project leader (Michael Bryant) redirects his team's technology and expertise to investigate the phenomenon, with terrifying results.
Thurs Oct 31: 3 & 7

DEATH LINE aka RAW MEAT
Gary Sherman, U.K., 1972; 87m
Mind the doors! The last surviving descendent of Victorian tunnel workers trapped by a cave-in dwells within the maze - like tunnels beneath the London Underground, occasionally emerging from the shadows in search of (human) food. Plague-ridden, and incapable of speech, this all-too-human monster elicits genuine pathos in no small part due to Hugh Armstrong's amazing performance. Donald Pleasance is the eccentric police inspector who investigates when a senior government official goes missing after a night on the town. This gem is hands-down the least-known great British horror film of the 70s.
Thurs Oct 31: 5 & 9

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