Starring: Vincent Price, Jane Asher, Hazel Court, David Weston
Out of the eight film adaptations he did, The Masque of the Red Death is one of Roger Corman’s more faithful renderings of an Edgar Allen Poe story.
Based on the 1842 short story of the same name with a slight incorporation of a sub-plot on Poe’s other tale, “Hop Frog,” the film is a vivid visual odyssey into madness, sadism, and death. Starring Vincent Price, The Masque of the Red Death takes place during the 12th century when a plague known as “The Red Death” was spreading across Europe, decimating the population. In the midst of this, Prince Prospero (Price) has cloistered himself with a select group of aristocrats in his castle fortress where he worships Satan. To pass the time, they play decadent parlor games which usually involve the victimization and torture of some unfortunate peasants. Prospero’s most recent act of cruelty involves forcing a local villager Francesca to choose between sparing the life of her father or her fiance. Meanwhile, a mysterious cloaked figure journeys toward Prospero’s castle for a fateful meeting.
STARRING: Emma Stone, Steve Carrell, Alan Cumming, Andrea Riseborough, and Natalie Morales
The electrifying 1973 tennis match between world number one champion Billie Jean King and ex-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs was billed as “The Battle of the Sexes” and became the most watched televised sports event of all time.
THE DEUCE will make Believers out of you in December, as we conclude 2017 with the ultimate end-of-the-year, End of the World blow-out THE RAPTURE!
Bored with mind-numbing work and bed-hopping swinger’s sessions, telephone information operator Mimi Rogers becomes a Born Again with mulleted ex-sex-partner David Duchovny – and begins a toxic relationship… with God! He’s such a jerk!!
A seriously demented and brazenly bonkers investigation of fathomless faith that goes for broke; adventurous and uncompromising beautiful and bewildering!
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For November, THE DEUCE serves up a feast of freaky fun with Mike and Roberta Findlay’s bonkers “Bigfoot” bonanza: SHRIEK OF THEMUTILATED!
A gung-ho group of grad students and their professor take a fearful field trip to the far-off regions of… upstate New York (Croton-on-Hudson) for a yuck-filled Yeti hunt! Heart-felt Yeti songs are sung, and heart-felt discussions… until the horrible heart-beat of the beast is heard!
When the students start dropping faster than their GPAs – will anyone survive the wrath of the wooly’s rampage?? A wacky, wholly WTF brain-drain of a Bigfoot (make that Yeti) yarn, chock-full of weirdness!…
With an ending that will put you in the perfect mood for Thanksgiving! Plus: a very energetic cocktail party set to that poppiest of tunes – “Popcorn” – aka the backgroundd music for The Deuce “Famous” Raffle!
Starring: Darryl Hannah, Rachel Ward, Adrian Zmed, Joe Pantolliano, Mark Metcalf.
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Starring: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger
Herk Harvey’s macabre masterpiece gained a cult following through late night television and has been bootlegged for years. Made by industrial filmmakers on a modest budget, Carnival of Souls was intended to have the “look of a Bergman” and “feel of a Cocteau,” and succeeds with its strikingly used locations and spooky organ score. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) survives a drag race in a rural Kansas town, then takes a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she becomes haunted by a bizarre apparition that compels her to an abandoned lakeside pavilion.
NEW RESTORATION!
In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the Dr. Eswai is called by Inspector Kruger to a small village to perform an autopsy on a woman who has died under suspicious circumstances. Despite help from Ruth, the village witch, Kruger is killed and it is revealed that the dead woman, as well as other villagers, have been killed by the ghost of Melissa, a young girl who, fed by the hatred of her grieving mother, Baroness Graps, exacts her revenge on them. Dr. Eswai, along with Monica, a local nurse, are lured into a fateful confrontation at the Villa Graps…
One of the great horror anthology films of all time hosted by the great Boris Karloff, and Mario Bava’s personal favorite of his works, Black Sabbath solidified the director’s reputation as Europe’s maestro of the macabre. In The Telephone! a woman is haunted by menacing phone calls from a former lover. The Wurdulak stars Karloff as a vampire hunter whose family is stalked by the wandering spirit of an undead ghoul. A Drop Of Water involves a nurse who steals a ring from a corpse – not realizing the curse that is carried with it.
One of the most influential horror films of all time, Mario Bava’s A BAY OF BLOOD (1971, aka Twitch of the Death Nerve) is the spurting artery from which all future slasher films would flow.
When crippled Countess Federica is murdered at her isolated mansion, a gruesome battle ensues to secure the rights to her valuable property around the bay. Everyone, from illegitimate children to shady real estate agents, stakes a claim, only to be killed in increasingly bizarre ways, from simple shootings to impalement by fishing spear. The makeup effects are by Carlo Rambaldi, who would later earn Oscars for his work in Alien (1979) and E.T. (1982).
Initially scorned upon its original release because of its graphic violence, A BAY OF BLOOD eventually became a trendsetter, the model slasher film that Friday the 13th would emulate nearly a decade later.
