Starting tonight at Midnight and continuing every Saturday night through Halloween, the Baxter Avenue Theaters and Louisville Halloween will be showing 80’s horror classics on the big screen and giving away haunted attraction passes and Halloween treats!
The Baxter Avenue Theater’s Midnight Movie Programmer, Beau Kaelin, has put together another chilling, thrilling Halloween Midnight Movie Series for 2013. This year the theme is “80’s horror” and will feature classic horror films directed by John Landis, George Romero, David Cronenberg and Fred Dekker.
For the first time this year, Louisville Halloween will be co-sponsoring each screening and ticket holders each night will have a chance to win haunted attraction passes and maybe even other Halloween treats as the series progresses. Below you’ll find the schedule for the entire series so you won’t miss a chance to see your favorite flicks on the big screen with the best horror audience in Louisville this Halloween.
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) Saturday, October 5th at MIDNIGHT: John Landis’ classic horror comedy starring David “I’m a Pepper” Naughton features some the most amazing werewolf transformation special effects ever seen on the silver screen by special make-up effects genius, Rick Baker. “An American Werewolf in London” was probably Hollywood’s most successful blend of horror and comedy since “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” in 1948.
CREEPSHOW (1982) Saturday, October 12th at MIDNIGHT: George Romero’s (“Night of the Living Dead”) homage to EC Comics “Tales from the Crypt” is one of the best horror anthology films ever produced.
As a young, underage Phantom, I have a funny story about sneaking into the premiere screening of “Creepshow” at the old Showcase Cinemas on Bardstown Road. A friend and I discovered that Showcase was running a promotion that allowed folks dressed up as monsters to get into the exclusive screening for FREE. This was perfect for us, since we could wear monster masks and heavy coats to disguise the fact that we were obviously too young to get into the R-rated screening without an adult guardian.
To our fiendish delight, we made it past the ticket booth without paying in our werewolf and fish-face masks, but when we got into the auditorium the manager came running up to us. I thought we were busted. On the contrary, he wanted us to be interviewed by a local news crew and we both ended up on the 11 o’clock news that night.
In those strange days, Showcase Cinemas had an “art gallery” on the second floor, and for this screening they were using the space for a free champagne bar and finger food. We actually had “Champagne Premieres” back in the 80’s. So suddenly my fish-face friend and I were being served champagne in plastic champagne glasses which we sipped through our monster mask mouth slots! We were still well under 17, and certainly nowhere near 21, so the masks had to stay on. Werewolf and fish-face both got a little tipsy and we watched the whole movie with our monster masks on. Obviously, it was one of the greatest movie screenings of my life.
THE FLY (1986) Saturday, October 19th at MIDNIGHT: David Cronenberg’s brilliant re-imagining of the 1958 Vincent Price sci-fi classic is still one of the only good Hollywood examples of an attempt to re-make a beloved classic. Jeff Goldblum gives the performance of his acting career as rogue scientist, Seth Brundle, whose good intentions of changing the travel industry with his matter transporter backfire when a tiny fly gets into the high tech pod with him. Louisville native, Charles Edward Pogue, wrote the amazing screenplay. This is still the grossest movie I’ve ever seen.
THE MONSTER SQUAD (1987) Saturday, October 26th at MIDNIGHT: A complete box-office flop during its original theatrical release, Fred Dekker’s homage to the Universal Monster movies of the 1930’s and 1940’s, has gone on to become a beloved young adult 80’s horror classic. Dekker basically re-worked elements from the Steven Spielberg produced, “The Goonies” (1985), but had his group of adventurous kids face off against classic movie monsters instead of pirates. I can’t watch “The Monster Squad” enough times, and since I was one of those kids who missed seeing it when it was released, I’ve never seen it on the big screen. This screening promises to be one of the best treats in the Ville for Halloween 2013!
