ECCENTRIC CINEMA

DOUBLE FEATURE: DEMONS 2 (1986) AND PUMPKINHEAD (1988)

Saturday, October 4, 9:30 pm

If you caught our screening of Lamberto Bava’s Demons on September 28, don’t miss the director’s 1986 follow-up! The nightmare continues as the hapless tenants of a high-rise find themselves trapped and stalked by ravenous, unholy creatures who break into our world through televisions. Featuring sickening splatter FX and a soundtrack loaded with gothic greats: The Smiths, Love and Rockets, The Cult, Art of Noise, and Gene Loves Jezebel. After that, Pumpkinhead, starring Lance Henriksen as an emotionally broken father who turns to a witch for help when his son is accidentally run down by a group of dirt bikers. The witch summons the demon Pumpkinhead, a gruesome beast that begins to savagely dispatch the young bikers. Henriksen, now psychically bonded with the creature, soon discovers there is a dreadful price to pay for revenge.

DOUBLE FEATURE: BLOODY MOON (1981) AND ZOMBIE (1979)

Saturday, October 11, 9:30 pm

Two foreign creep shows dominate the night starting with Jesús Franco’s utterly depraved and over-the-top slasher, Bloody Moon. A creepy loner, his face half-scarred, returns to his aunt’s mansion/language school after five years in a mental asylum. Secretly in love with his sister, the man buries his despicable feelings. Soon, however, young women at the school begin to die in brutal ways. Is the loner behind the killings, or is another psycho lurking in the halls of the school? If you came to our screening of Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos earlier this year, you know exactly how bonkers Franco is willing to be. Following that, we present Zombie, Lucio Fulci’s classic gut-muncher from 1979. This unofficial sequel to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead follows a young woman who leaves New York City to find her father, who went missing on a Caribbean island. The woman and her party discover the island overrun with some of the most foul-looking zombies ever put to film. Fulci pulls no stops in depicting his undead mayhem, including a scene where a zombie fights an actual tiger shark underwater.

THE ROOM (2003)

Second Saturday of every month
Saturday, October 11, 9:45 pm

Johnny is a successful banker who lives happily in a San Francisco townhouse with his fiancée, Lisa. One day, inexplicably, she gets bored with him and decides to seduce his best friend, Mark. From there, nothing will be the same again.

If you have not experienced The Room at the Drexel, you don’t know what you’re missing. The loyal fans have created their own live experience à la The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They’re always excited to indoctrinate newbies into the cult of Wiseau. A Drexel tradition for 16 years, The Room is a gonzo masterpiece. (2003, dir. Tommy Wiseau)

POSSESSION (1981)

Saturday, October 18, 9:30 pm

We’re bringing back last year’s Halloween hit, Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession! Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill star as a venomous couple who spiral into self-destruction when Adjani takes up an affair with something … nightmarish and indescribable. NOTE: Due to contractual obligations with the distributors, only individual tickets are available for these shows.

MESSIAH OF EVIL (1974)

Sunday, October 19, 12:00 am

Stick with us for the ‘70s gem Messiah of Evil, written and directed by Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz (writers of American Graffiti and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). Arletty (Marianna Hill) travels to Point Dume in the hopes of mending her relationship with her estranged father. Instead, she finds the town has been taken over by a mysterious cult that counts a bug-eating creep as one of its members. This truly spooky indie film is presented in a restored 4K edition. NOTE: Due to contractual obligations with the distributors, only individual tickets are available for these shows.

DOUBLE FEATURE: TRICK OR TREAT (1986) AND HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)

Saturday, October 25, 9:30 pm

Get ready for a little Satanic Panic with 1986’s Trick or Treat, starring Marc Price (lovable dork Skippy on the mega-popular ’80s sitcom Family Ties), Gene Simmons of KISS, Doug Savant (Melrose Place), and a cameo from the dearly departed Ozzy Osbourne. Walking punching bag Eddie Weinbauer (Price) can’t catch a break: the school bullies torture him, the hot girls make fun of him, and his favorite rock star Sammi Curr (professional dancer Tony Fields) has just died in a hotel fire. Eddie’s DJ buddy Nuke (Simmons) gifts the teen the very last record Curr ever recorded. When he foolishly plays it backward, he resurrects a very angry, very burnt Curr, who embarks on a killing spree to rid Eddie of his high school tormentors. Directed by Charles Martin Smith (Terry the Toad in American Graffiti). Closing out the night is Halloween III: Season of the Witch, the only entry to not feature infamous babysitter murderer Michael Myers. After killing off Myers at the end of Halloween II, John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill decided to spin the franchise off into an anthology series centered around the holiday. Audiences didn’t warm to this approach, and Myers was brought back for later entries. Time has been kind to Halloween III in the years since, and a massive cult audience has rightfully sung its praises. A boozy doctor (horror legend Tom Atkins) accompanies a young woman (Stacey Nelkin) to a quiet coastal California town to investigate a mysterious toy manufacturer who might be involved in her father’s death. Paranoid, nihilistic, haunting, and genuinely unsettling at points, Halloween III captures the autumnal dread of the season.