Starring: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners
Renfield, an estate agent, travels to Transylvania to complete a real estate transaction with Count Dracula. Unbeknown to Renfield, Dracula is a vampire and the visitor is soon his unwilling servant. They travel by ship to England, but by the time it makes port an insane Renfield is the only living passenger. Count Dracula moves into Carfax Abbey and immediately sets out to possess the beautiful Mina, who lives next door. It’s left Professor Van Helsing – who knows exactly what Dracula is – to stop the spread of his evil.
Starring: Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard
40th anniversary screening. Co-hosted by writer Abbey Bender.
Slinking through the streets of New Orleans with a score by Giorgio Moroder and theme song from David Bowie, Cat People is a gooey, sultry exercise in style directed by Paul Schrader. Nastassja Kinski stars as Irena, a woman reuniting with her brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell), whom she was separated from as a child. After only hinting at what their parents were like, Paul disappears just as a murderous black leopard terrorizes the town. Captured and caged by zoologist Oliver (John Heard), the leopard has a mysterious hold on Irena, who in turn enchants Oliver. Irena is resistant as something stirs within her, something she’s known may have been kept hidden all along…
Keep track of the erotic thriller tropes with your Nitehawk Diaries Bingo card!
Starring: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Joe Belcher
Two American college students are on a walking tour of Britain and are attacked by a werewolf. One is killed, the other is mauled. The werewolf is killed but reverts to its human form, and the local townspeople are unwilling to acknowledge its existence. The surviving student begins to have nightmares of hunting on four feet, but then finds that his friend and other recent victims appear to him, demanding that he commit suicide to release them from their curse.
Starring: Chloë Levine, Granit Lahu, Jeremy Pope, Bubba Weiler, Amanda Grace Benitez, Jeremy Holm, Larry Fessenden
After a run-in with the cops at a punk show goes sideways, Chelsea (Chloe Levine, THE TRANSFIGURATION) and her pals flee the city in search of a place to lay low. Running to the security of Chelsea’s old, abandoned family cabin in the woods, they fall under the watchful eye of an overzealous park ranger (Jeremy Holm, HOUSE OF CARDS) who holds a secret from Chelsea’s past. Set to the beat of a killer punk soundtrack (FANG, The Avengers, The Grim, Rotten UK and more) and presented in eye-popping neon colors, Jenn Wexler’s debut offers a modern take on survivalist horror that both celebrates and subverts the genre’s tropes—with equal parts humor, glitter and gore.
THE RANGER world premiered at SXSW 2018, was in official selection for the innagural What The Fest!?, recently played the Fantasia International Film Festival, and opened London’s FrightFest.
Starring: Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive
Dr. Frankenstein is forced to tempt fate once again by creating a suitable mate for his monster.
Starring: Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Peter Boyle, Gene Hackman, Teri Garr
A young neurosurgeon inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback called Igor, a pretty lab assistant named Inga and the old housekeeper, Frau Blucher. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather was delusional, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind.
Starring: Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Arno Jürging, Dalila Di Lazzaro
In Serbia, Baron Frankenstein lives with the Baroness and their two children. He dreams of a super-race, returning Serbia to its grand connections to ancient Greece. In his laboratory, assisted by Otto, he builds a desirable female body, but needs a male who will be super-body and super-lover. He thinks he has found just the right brain to go with a body he’s built, but he’s made an error, taking the head of an asexual ascetic. Meanwhile, the Baroness has her lusts, and she fastens on Nicholas, a friend of the dead lad. Can the Baron pull off his grand plan? He brings the two zombies together to mate. Meanwhile, Nicholas tries to free his dead friend. What about the Baron’s children?
Starring: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke
Dr. Henry Frankenstein, a mad, obsessed scientist, creates a monster by taking body parts from dead people. Upon placing a brain inside the head of the monster, Henry and his assistant Fritz are amazed that the experiment is alive. When the monster mistakenly kills Maria, a young girl he meets down by the river, the town is up in arms and aims to bring the monster to justice. They find the monster and his creator in an old windmill, where the monster is attempting to kill his maker.
Starring: Ben Dickey, Alia Shawkat, Josh Hamilton, Charlie Sexton
BLAZE is inspired by the life of Blaze Foley, the unsung songwriting legend of the Texas outlaw music movement that spawned the likes of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. The film weaves together three different periods of time, braiding re-imagined versions of Blaze’s past, present and future. The different strands explore his love affair with Sybil Rosen; his last, dark night on earth; and the impact of his songs and his death had on his fans, friends, and foes. The braided storyline terminates in a bittersweet ending that acknowledges Blaze’s profound highs and lows, as well as the impressions he made on the people who shared his journey.
