DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Repertory: Halloween Screams at the AFI
Perhaps my favorite part of this time of year is the fact that on any given night, you can turn on the television, and somewhere on the dial you can find a movie about things that go bump in the night, creatures from the depths of Hell, or your garden variety psychopathic masked murderer of libidinous teens. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. Let’s not forget the pleasure of watching horror movies in big groups in the theater, though. Should the onscreen zombies break through into our world, much better to have a large group of human shields fellow fighters around than to be at home alone.
To that end, the AFI is screening three classics in the lead up to Halloween next week. First up, tomorrow night only, are two screenings of Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau’s classic 1922 unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. While later depictions of the Count played up his suave GQ style and way with the ladies, Murnau’s vision was far more monstrous, and the face of his Count Orlock has become an iconic horror image. Eighty-five years after its release, it’s still a dark and creepy experience. The AFI’s screenings also include live music accompaniment from the Silent Orchestra.
Filling out the remaining days until Halloween are two more recent classics, The Wicker Man and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Both of these have been seen as remakes in recent years. The Chainsaw remake was not particularly horrible, just rather pointless, as it ignored the fact that part of the original’s fright factor is firmly entrenched in its dim lighting, grainy film stock, and production values that contributed to it feeling less like a movie and more like something that was actually happening in front of you. The glossy sheen of the remake made it into a snoozefest. As for Neil Labute’s ill-advised Wicker Man remake of last year, if you had the good fortune to miss it, all you really need to know about the film can be viewed in a handy YouTube condensed version that highlights the unintended hilarity. We suggest getting the bad taste of both of these remakes out of your mouth by catching the originals in the coming days.
Nosferatu trailer. Texas Chainsaw Massacre trailer.
Nosferatu plays two shows tomorrow night only, while Wicker Man and Texas Chainsaw Massacre play Saturday through Halloween night.
