(Hint) Anthology with culture. Submitted for your approval.
Hatched
An Evening with Morbid Anatomy: Mark of the Devil
Starring: Herbert Lom, Udo Kier, Olivera Katarina
Rated ‘V’ for Violence! Banned in 13 countries! Mark of the Devil follows a master witch hunter and his bright eyed apprentice (a baby-face Udo Kier) as they capture and torture the women of a small Austrian town. As the master’s atrocities pile up, the apprentice begins to see their work for what it is: a means of control over the poor, an outlet for sexual insecurity and a seizure of power from embedded aristocrats.
Morbid Anatomy and Nitehawk Cinema bring the lurid thrills of the Grand Guingol to Brooklyn with a vicious tale of patriarchy and perversion, Michael Armstrong’s Mark of the Devil. Preceding our 35mm presentation of the film will be a pair of shorts presented by The Midnight Archive: Grand Guiginol: The Theatre of Fear and Terror, and The Occult Collector, whose subject, Calvin Von Crush, will be joining us for a twisted show-and-tell.
Morbid Anatomy has been surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture, since 2007. Their means of communication have included a blog, an open to the public collection and research library, classes, lectures, exhibitions, spectacles, symposia, field trips, books, screenings and parties.
Watership Down
Starring: John Hurt, Richard Briers, Michael Graham Cox, John Bennett, Simon Cadell, Roy Kinnear
When a young rabbit named Fiver has a prophetic vision that the end of his warren is near, he persuades seven other rabbits to leave with him in search of a new home. Several obstacles impede their progress, including predators, a rat-filled cemetery and a speeding river. Upon arriving at their final destination, a hill dubbed Watership Down, the rabbits find that their journey is still far from over. Realistically drawn, this British animated film carries an emotional weight.
Rambo: Last Blood
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Paz Vega, Yvette Monreal, Sergio Peris-Mencheta
Almost four decades after he drew first blood, Sylvester Stallone is back as one of the greatest action heroes of all time, John Rambo. Now, Rambo must confront his past and unearth his ruthless combat skills to exact revenge in a final mission. A deadly journey of vengeance, Rambo: Last Blood marks the last chapter of the legendary series.
Blood
Starring: Allan Berendt, Hope Stansbury, Patricia Gaul
A howlingly-good time awaits this October on THE DEUCE – when gutter-auteur Andy Milligan’s monster-mash-up BLOOD spills across the screen – eliciting more laughs than screams – as it did with the scuzzballs at Times Square’s Selwyn Theater in 1974… or was it 1976? Or both!?!
With 1970s Staten Island doubling for “1930s London” – the Wolfman’s son and Dracula’s daughter live in less-than marital bliss and spend their time raising blood-sucking plants!?! While blood-thirsty bats turn townsfolk into cannibals!?! With real-estate chicanery and philandering leading to multiple murders!?! And then come even more plot improbabilities to make your mind spin! Mad scientists with deformed lab assistants, vampires, and man-eating plants are just the beginning – but there’s seemingly no end to the hatred spewed by and at everyone involved!!
Yet again Milligan cobbles together his usual mix of over-the-top theatrics and acting (with muse extraordinaire, Hope Stansbury in a stand-out performance), paltry period costumes, and a non-stop barrage of bitter dialogue – sprinkled with some cut-rate gore and skin-crawly “sex” to pander to the perverts of his Times Square “audience” – and fashions what may be the best of his singular, stridently demented, lunatic dreams… it’s actually atmospheric!
Ski Party
Starring: Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Deborah Walley
Hit the slopes of hilarity with THE DEUCE this December, for a SKI PARTY with all the “ski-nicks and ski-chicks” at Times Square’s Lyric Theatre – where it opened on October 22, 1965… on a double bill with SERGEANT DEADHEAD (also starring Frankie Avalon!)!
“Beach Movie” bozos Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman are college besties who find that their feeble attempts at dating are falling flat with the girls… so they decide to become some themselves – donning dresses and tresses in a desperate attempt to sneak a peek at the feminine psyche during a school ski trip! And while they’re learning nothing about what the girls want in a guy, the BMOC uber-hunk “somehow” develops the hots for “lady” Dwayne!
It’s powder-puffs in the powder as the Beach-Blanket-Bingo crowd take their bikinis to the snowy slopes for a surreal swirl of sight-gags, slapstick, stupid stunts and lo-fi special-effects in Sun Valley! Hijinks and high-jumps! Lesley Gore go-go-ing on a school bus!! James Brown and The Famous Flames as a cardigan’d singing ski-patrol! With genre-fave Dick Miller taking a turn as a taxi-cab driver, and a pesky yodeling polar bear that keeps randomly popping up?!?
Sandwiched right in the middle of AIP’s twelve “official” Beach Party movies – and the second of FIVE released in 1965 alone (!) – SKI PARTY hits a high point of strange for the series, playing with what had already become a standard formula for the films and seemingly adhering to no sense of logic… with enough energy and youthful exuberance to keep it all on track, just before the series took its decidedly “downhill” turn… (get it??)
Gator Bait
Starring: Claudia Jennings, Sam Gilman, Douglas Dirkson
Sink your teeth into a Cajun feast of fury this November when THE DEUCE serves up a hot-plate of back-woods revenge with Beverly and Ferd Sebastian’s everglades-exploitationer GATOR BAIT – heating it up as it did the denizens of Times Square’s Harris Theater in the sweaty summer of 1974!
Like a bayou bobcat, ‘Desiree Thibodaeu’ has a ferally fine time supporting her siblings by poaching from the bounty of the swamp she calls home… until some slack-jawed rednecks and a long-standing family feud lead to a bout of brutal barbarity that pits our gutsy gal of action against a putrid patriarchy of psychos, sickos, and prejudiced scumbags who soon discover they’ve bitten off more than even a gator could chew… when they become the hunted at the hands of the hillbilly hell-cat hell-bent on revenge!
With the verdant setting evocatively lensed by Ferd and a screenplay by Beverly that strikes a stridently feminist note, it’s still the incomparable Claudia Jennings – in her second film with the husband-wife Sebastian directing team – igniting the sun-scorched steamy swamp as ‘Desiree’ – and dishing out some well-deserved comeuppance on everyone who done her and her family wrong – that sets this no-budget exploitation actioner on fire!! And you won’t stop singing her theme song, “Desiree,” to yourself either… yes-sir-ee, I gar-run-tee!
Generation Queer
Generation Queer spotlights short films made by emerging LGBTQIA+ filmmakers.
These unique works challenge, subvert, and twist the boundaries of independent cinema. A portion of ticket sales from Generation Queer will go to the Centro Comunitario LGBT de Puerto Rico.
Curated by Lio Mehiel and Erica Rose
FRAN THIS SUMMER – Dir. Mary Evangelista
Teenage love birds spend slow and tender summer days shacked up at home while one begins her transition. (9 min)
SELL YOUR BODY – Dir. Jaanelle Yee
A millennial horror-comedy about a med school dropout suffocated by student debt who swipes a wild couple on a dating app to make some fast cash.
DAUGHTERS OF WOLBACHIA – Dir. Ariel McCleese
In the wake of a feminist bacterial apocalypse, three women fight to secure domination over man once and for all.
NI DE AQUI, NI DE ALLA – Dir. Carlos Valdivia
Jose’s financial aid runs out a week before a prestigious interview that puts his future in jeopardy.
GIRL TALK – Dir. Erica Rose
20-something Mia explores the disparity between emotional and physical intimacy, coming to a head when she meets an intriguing couple.
Below the Belt
Starring: Regina Baff, Mildred Burke, John C. Becher, Annie McGreevey, Jane O’Brien, Sierra Pecheur
This September, THE DEUCE is gonna grab you by the throat and hit ya BELOW THE BELT… the low-budget, shot-in-1974, all-female wrestling romp that walloped the weirdos of Times Square’s Selwyn Theater when it finally hit the screen in 1980!
Bored with her going-nowhere job, NYC waitress Rosa Rubinsky decides to take a career turn into the wrestling ring – reinventing and redubbing her Polish persona into “The Mexican Spitfire”! Tedious travelling between two-bit towns and trying to survive on bout-to-bout bounty take the forefront in this gritty behind-the-scenes slice of a subculture in its pre-TV glitter days… Low on glamor and glory but brimming with gusto – these gutsy gals give it their all as real actors mix it up with real wrestlers – like the dirty-dealing, mostly toothless Jane “Tommy The Terrible” O’Brien!
Engagingly adapted from Rosalyn Dexter’s semi-autobiographical novel To Smithereens by Sherry Sonnet and director Robert Fowler, BELOW THE BELT is a scrappy ride with a real feel for time and place and a real care for its characters… A rarely seen road movie of camaraderie and choke-holds that takes a wild ride with some amazing women… BELOW THE BELT hits the spot! We have a winner!!
Bliss
Starring: Dora Madison, Tru Collins, Rhys Wakefield, Jeremy Gardner, Graham Skipper, George Wendt
A brilliant painter facing the worst creative block of her life turns to anything she can to complete her masterpiece, spiraling into a hallucinatory hellscape of drugs, sex, and murder in the sleazy underbelly of Los Angeles.
