Be Haunted by (or Laugh at) a Cinematic Specter!
Sometimes horror is a dreadful chill, a bloody monster that will haunt your nightmares. Sometimes horror is a silly affair with a man in an ill-fitting mask “menacing” teens making halfhearted pleas for mercy. Whatever your preference, the Chester Fritz Library has plenty of horror films on display for the spooky season! Indeed, we will be bringing you three horror films this October!
On October 1, come see Sinners, the blockbuster vampire flick in which Michael B. Jordan plays identical twins who attract uninvited guests when they open a juke joint in 1932 Mississippi. Then on October 15 we will be showing Weapons, the recent box office hit about the overnight disappearance of all but one student in a small town third-grade class.
Finally, join us on Thursday, October 23 for a special presentation of Troll 2. The English department’s Prof. Justin Wigard will be hosting a presentation of the campy cult film about a boy who works with his grandfather’s ghost to save their family from being transformed into plants by vegetarian goblins. Stay afterwards for a discussion!
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Baggage handlers Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) unwittingly deliver the coffin of Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the body of Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) to the House of Horrors museum. When Dracula and the monster escape, Chick and Wilbur get mixed up in a mad scientist’s (Lenore Aubert) plot so find the monster a more obedient brain. They’ll need the help of the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.) to get out alive! (1948, dir. Charles Barton, 82 minutes)
July 1957: two teens on a rural Pennsylvania lovers’ lane (Steven McQueen and Aneta Corseaut) spy a shooting star. From the meteorite emerges an outer-space monster with neither soul nor vertebrae! The gelatinous entity grows into a giant as it phagocytoses the townsfolk. It is up to the teens to warn their neighbors of the threat before the Blob becomes unstoppable. (1958, dir. Irving S. Yeaworth, Jr., 86 minutes)
In 17th century Moldavia, the Princess Asa (Barbara Steele) is condemned to death for witchcraft, along with her lover, Igor Javutich (Arturo Dominici). 200 years later, two doctors en route to a medical convention (John Richardson and Andrea Checchi) discover her crypt and accidentally trigger her resurrection. With the aid of Javutich and her power of hypnotism, Asa plots to sacrifice her descendant, Princess Katia (Steele again), to fully return to the land of the living. (1960, dir. Mario Bava, 87 minutes)
Vlad the Impaler (Gary Oldman) renounces God upon the death of his wife to become Count Dracula, thus receiving immortality from Satan. Centuries later, in 1897, Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) departs from fiancé Mina Murray (Winona Ryder) and journeys to Transylvania to complete a real estate transaction with the count. After seeing a photo of Mina, whom he believes to be his wife reincarnated, Dracula keeps Jonathan as a prisoner in his castle while he travels to London to “reunite” with his long-lost love. (1992, dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 128 minutes)
France, 1766: Scientist and adventurer Grégoire de Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan) and his Haudenosaunee companion Mani (Mark Dacascos) arrive in Gévaudan on a royal mission to investigate attacks perpetrated by a wolf-like beast. As the beast continues to ravage the area, Grégoire and Mani reveal that it is under the control of a cult led by an aristocratic hunter (Vincent Cassel), and they will need the help of his sister (Émilie Dequenne) and an Italian courtesan (Monica Bellucci) to slay the wolf. (2001, dir. Stanley Kramer, 159 minutes)
The Spanish Civil War is nearly over; Francisco Franco’s victory is imminent. Ten-year-old Carlos (Fernando Tielve) is sent to live at the remote Santa Lucia School, a Republican-run orphanage. Soon after his arrival, Carlos has a series of supernatural encounters: strange shadows, voices, and the apparition of a murdered boy. Meanwhile, the orphanage caretaker (Eduardo Noriega) conspires against the staff to claim a cache of gold, a remnant of the Republic’s treasury. (2001, dir. Guillermo del Toro, 108 minutes)
A schoolgirl named Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) is upset that her father has remarried and goes on a trip with her six friends to visit her aunt (Yoko Minamida) at her countryside home. Yet once they arrive, the girls begin to vanish, seemingly eaten by the magical house. (1977, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, 88 minutes)
I Married a Monster from Outer Space
Marge Farrell (Gloria Talbott) cannot fix her marriage. Her husband, Bill (Tom Tyron), is no longer affectionate with her, hates the dog she bought him for their anniversary, and is seemingly unable to start a family with her. Observing his closeness to other childless men in town, she tails him on an evening excursion in the woods and discovers he is not the man she knew at all! (1958, dir. Gene Fowler, Jr., 78 minutes)
A young woman (Kiwako Taichi) and her mother-in-law (Nobuko Otowa) are raped and killed by a band of samurai, their house burned to the ground. A black cat is the only witness to the crime. Soon thereafter, the samurai’s leader is seduced and murdered by cat-like spirits resembling the victims. Meanwhile, a young man (Kichiemon Nakamura) is made a samurai after slaying an Emishi general. His first mission is to dispel a pair of homicidal spirits, but his homecoming is soured when he learns his wife and mother have gone missing and his house has burned down. (1968, dir. Kaneto Shindo, 99 minutes)
Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) is to serve as a lighthouse keeper for four weeks on a remote New England isle under the supervision of Thomas Wake (Willem Defoe). Wake is bossy and forbids Winslow from entering the lantern room. Bad weather strands the men on the rock for longer than expected, and with their rations spoiled, they only have crates of liquor and each other for company. (2019, dir. Robert Eggers, 109 minutes)
M3GAN (Amie Donald/Jenna Davis) is a marvel of artificial intelligence, a lifelike doll programmed to be a child’s greatest companion and a parent’s greatest ally. Designed by Gemma (Allison Williams), a roboticist, M3GAN can listen, watch and learn as it plays the roles of friend, teacher, and protector. When Gemma unexpectedly becomes the caretaker of her 8-year-old niece Cady (Violet McGraw), she decides to give the girl a M3GAN prototype and witnesses the doll’s unanticipated behaviors firsthand. (2022, dir. Gerard Johnstone, 102 minutes)
Flying saucers have been spotted over Burbank, California, and they’re raising the dead! The U.S. government tries to cover up the invasion, but they cannot repel the saucers. As alien commander Eros (Dudley Manlove) advances Plan 9 for planetary conquest, an airline pilot (Gregory Walcott) teams up with a detective (Duke Moore) to stop the threat and rescue his wife (Mona McKinnon). (1957, dir. Edward D. Wood, Jr., 80 minutes)
