With the San Francisco International Film Festival in town, several of out regularly scheduled programs have been put off for the week. Namely, Terror Tuesday, Weird Wednesday, and all of the Castro's programming will not be happening, but only for a little while! In the meantime, our fabulous bay area theatres are showing some iconic scifi, horror, and vintage thrillers.
See for yourself!
Tuesday 11th @ 7pm (2hrs 9min)
Action/ Adventure/ SciFi (IMDB)
Paul Verhoeven has fashioned a visually spectacular, morbidly funny comic book adventure that seems to merge the fresh-faced youths of the Archie Comics with the save-the-planet mandate of ÒBuck Rogers.Ó
Tuesday 11th @ 7pm (1hr 43min)
Action/ Horror/ SciFi (IMDB)
The title of this David Cronenberg sci-fi horror film refers to a group of people who have telekinetic powers that allow them to read minds and give them the ability to make other people's heads explode. The children of a group of women who took an experimental tranquilizer during their pregnancies, the scanners are now adults and have become outcasts from society. But Darryl (Michael Ironside) decides to create an army of scanners to take over the world. The only person who can stop him is his brother Cameron (Stephen Lack), who wants to forget that he was ever a scanner. Winner of the International Fantasy Film Award at the 1983 Fantasporto Film Festival, Scanners was followed by a pair of sequels, neither of which involved Cronenberg. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
Super Shangri-La Show Presents
The Thief of Bagbad (1940)
Wednesday 12th @ 7:30pm (1hr 46min)
Adventure/ Fantasy (IMDB)
Deceived and deposed by his sinister adviser, Jaffar (Conrad Veidt), Ahmad (John Justin), the King of Bagdad, must find a way to reclaim his throne. Enlisting the unlikely assistance of a thief named Abu (Sabu), Ahmad soon meets a beautiful princess (June Duprez) and embarks on a series of adventures involving a genie (Rex Ingram), a flying carpet, and other fantastical elements. Eventually, Ahmad and Abu must face off against Jaffar, who will stop at nothing to hold on to power.
Tuesday 11th @ 7pm (1hr 32min)
Documentary/ Drama (IMDB)
After stumbling upon a bizarre "competitive endurance tickling" video online, wherein young men are paid to be tied up and tickled, reporter David Farrier reaches out to request a story from the company. But the reply he receives is shocking-the sender mocks Farrier's sexual orientation and threatens extreme legal action should he dig any deeper. So, like any good journalist confronted by a bully, he does just the opposite: he travels to the hidden tickling facilities in Los Angeles and uncovers a vast empire, known for harassing and harming the lives of those who protest their involvement in these films. The more he investigates, the stranger it gets, discovering secret identities and criminal activity. Discovering the truth becomes Farrier's obsession, despite increasingly sinister threats and warnings. With humor and determination, Farrier and co-director Dylan Reeve summon up every resource available to get to the bottom of this tickling worm hole.
Wednesday 12th @ 9:15pm (1hr 47min)
Action/ SciFi (IMDB)
A seemingly indestructible humanoid cyborg is sent from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate a waitress, whose unborn son will lead humanity in a war against the machines, while a soldier from that war is sent to protect her at all costs.
The Ghost Ship (1943)
Friday 14th @ 6:10pm & 8:50pm (1hr 9min)
Drama/ Mystery/ Thriller (IMDB)
In this film, Richard Dix stars as a ship's captain, a tortured soul who teeters on the verge of madness. Seaman Russell Wade notices the captain's deterioration, but his warnings go unheeded. Captain Dix completely goes over the edge, sadistically playing a game of cat and mouse with Wade.
-with-
Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Friday 14th @ 7:30pm (1hr 10min)
Drama/ Horror (IMDB)
Officially a sequel to Val Lewton's psychological-horror classic Cat People (1942), Curse of the Cat People is in fact an engrossing and oftimes charming fantasy, told from a child's point of view. Six-year-old Ann Carter plays Amy Reed, the lonely daughter of eternally preoccupied Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). Amy's vivid imagination and inability to get along with her schoolmates leads Oliver to worry that the girl will start exhibiting the psychopathic tendencies of his long-deceased first wife Irena (Simone Simon), the obsessive "Cat Woman" in the earlier film. Oliver's second wife Alice (Jane Randolph) and Amy's sympathetic schoolteacher (Eve March) try to help, but Amy prefers the company of elderly Julia Farren (Julia Dean), a harmlessly crazy ex-actress who lives in a forbidding mansion with her neurotic daughter Barbara (Elizabeth Russell). Insanely jealous of Amy, Barbara ultimately tries to do the girl harm, but she is thwarted in this effort by the ghost of Irena, Amy's self-appointed guardian angel. Advertised as a horror picture, Curse of the Cat People has only one genuine "shock" scene; otherwise, the most frightening moment in the film is Julia Farren's spirited rendition of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." Saddled with a lurid title, producer Lewton and screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen chose to offer a fascinating glimpse into the wonderfully boundless realm of a child's imagination, and in this respect the film is an unqualified success. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
-Huntress
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