Bumps (and Chumps) in the Night

In a fitting dramatic flourish, the Two Boots Pioneer theater closed one year ago this upcoming Halloween. George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was the last movie screened at the much-missed hub for both vintage and contemporary cult flicks. The saddest part about the space closing was how quickly its unusual programming disappeared with nothing to fill the space. Programmer/manager Lee Paterson’s eclectic and exciting month-long “Schlocktober” festival, featuring everything from Italian zombies to Mexican wrestlers, made it seem as if the Pioneer was going strong right up until its last night. This is the first Halloween in a decade that New Yorkers will have to get their horror fix without the theater and, while it’s tempting to say that it’s not going to be an easy one, there is hope yet.

Rather than let the great grindhouse void remain unfilled, many of Manhattan’s repertory arthouses are stepping up their programming this year with some truly inspired selections. Film Forum will screen Vincent Price’s 1973 camp gem Theater of Blood (read Armond White’s review here) for a week as part of a double feature alongside the 1961 Susan Strasberg vehicle Scream of Fear. Of the two, Theater of Blood is the one to get excited for, an unhinged blast of macabre slapstick. Price plays a hack Shakespearian actor who, now unrecognized at the end of his career, takes out his frustration on his most unkind critics by killing them using the Bard’s plays for inspiration. The Titus Andronicus and Troilus and Cressida deaths are not to be missed.

Theater of Blood is a milestone of the period in Price’s career where he happily sent up the theatricality of his more iconic performances (paging Dr. Phibes…). A great example of that earlier period, represented best by his work with director Roger Corman, can be seen at the Anthology Film Archives as part of their selective retrospective of the indispensable indie filmmaker’s work. Corman’s 1962 omnibus film Tales of Terror, screened on Halloween night, provides a good spectrum of Price’s talents, from sweeping melancholy in the film’s opening “Morella” segment to giddily goggle-eyed prissiness in “The Black Cat.” The latter story also features a winning later performance from Peter Lorre as a pickled wine connoisseur that sobers up when he discovers his wife is having an affair with the fey Price.

The Anthology Film Archives’ retrospective features some of Corman’s best projects as a director, including The Pit and the Pendulum and The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, but Tales of Terror, adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories by renowned horror writer Richard Matheson, is probably your best bet for great Halloween programming.

For the city’s best day-of programming, look to the BAM Cinématek for Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 freakout Hausu, which screened earlier at the prescient New York Asian Film Festival. Hausu is an acid-fueled satire of genre conventions that culminates in one of the most wonky haunted houses ever (Don’t even think about playing that piano; it has teeth). Obayashi puts his troupe of teenage heroines through melodramatic hell, poking fun of the post-feminist concept of empowered fetishization before there even was feminism was anywhere near “post” through ritualized dismemberment. Household products pick the girls off one by one, leaving a wake of hilariously hyper-active severed digits, disembodied heads and possessed gams. You won’t find a film as delightfully possessed this season.

And speaking of possessed, don’t give up just yet on contemporary chills at your local multiplex. The Pioneer’s programmers never did, sprinkling in shows of new indie horror and exploitation films throughout “Schlocktober” (a recent adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s Colour from the Dark was a highlight). As moronic as its protagonists may be, Paranormal Activity manages to deliver the scares that the film’s juggernaut of a hype machine promise. Like a more clean-burning Blair Witch Version 2.0, the film is pieced together from handheld footage left behind by a vapid couple as they’re haunted by an invisible demon for a good few weeks. They refuse to get help so that the real filmmakers can milk a few more good scares out of their stupidity. Paranormal Activity’s minimalist premise gives it an “indie-flavor” that has won it a healthy following, proving that there may yet be hope for effective new films that are both spooky and, y’know, marketable. But for a little brains with your schlock, look to the retrospectives for immediate relief.