I am extremely excited about a certain movie that will be playing in San Francisco starting this Friday! It's one I've been wanting to see since its Kickstarter campaign, but questioned whether I'd ever be able to. And I really like the answer I got about it after all: Gehenna: Where Death Lives is opening at the Little Roxie on Friday and will be screening for a full week!
This week we're also getting Dr. Who like you've never seen him in Bad Samaritan, which opens for early screening on Thursday and opens wide Friday.
The Stanford Theatre continues its suspenseful classic double features, and The Warriors come to the Clay Theatre for a midnight romp.
Opening This Week
Early Screenings Thursday 3rd (1hr 50min)
Opens Friday 4th
Horror/ Thriller (IMDB)
A valet (Robert Sheehan) develops a clever scam to burglarize the houses of rich customers. Things go smoothly until he robs the wrong customer (David Tennant), and discovers a woman being held captive in his home. Afraid of going to prison, he leaves the woman there and makes a call to the police, who find nothing when they investigate. Now, the valet must endure the wrath of the kidnapper who seeks revenge on him, all while desperately trying to find and rescue the captive woman he left behind.
IFC Midnight Presents
Monday 30th to Thursday 3rd @ 6:20pm (1hr 36min)
Comedy/ Crime/ Drama (IMDB)
What happens when you throw together a fallen Mexican wrestler with serious rage issues, a just-out-of-prison ex-con with a regrettable face tattoo, and a recovering junkie motel owner in search of a kidney? That's the premise of the berserk, blood-spattered, and wickedly entertaining feature debut from Ryan Prows. Set amidst the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, Lowlife zigzags back and forth in time as it charts how fate-and a ruthless crime boss-connects three down-and-out reprobates mixed up in an organ harvesting scheme that goes from bad to worse to off-the-rails insane. Careening from savagely funny to just plain savage to unexpectedly heartfelt, this audacious thriller serves up nonstop adrenaline alongside hard-hitting commentary about the state of contemporary America.
Terror Tuesday
Tuesday 1st @ 10:35pm (1hr 47min)
Horror (MDB)
An American college student in Rome and his sister in New York investigate a series of killings in both locations where their resident addresses are the domain of two covens of witches.
Rewind Wednesday
Hackers (1995)
Wednesday 2nd @ 7:30pm (1hr 47min)
Action/ Suspense/ Sci-Fi (Rotten Tomatoes)
After breaking into the computers of a massive oil company, a group of teen-age hackers uncovers evidence of a wide-ranging embezzling scheme. Their intrusion is discovered, and they must rally to find proof and save themselves before they are captured by the police in this techno-thriller.
Friday 4th @ 11:55pm (1hr 34min)
Action/ Thriller (IMDB)
Walter Hill's hip, super-stylized action film unfurls in a dystopian near-future, when various gangs control New York City. Each gang sports a unique moniker ('The Warriors,' 'The Baseball Furies,' 'The Rogues'), with a costume underscoring its "theme"; each, in turn, is also responsible for one geographic area. Hill sets up the landscape as a massive, violent playground - replete with bridges, vacant subway tunnels, parks, abandoned buildings and the like, all ripe for exploration and adventure. As the tale opens, the titular Coney Island has traveled to the Bronx to attend a city-wide meeting of all gangs; at that event, however, the psychotic leader of a rival gang, The Rogues (David Patrick Kelly of Dreamscape) assassinates the head of the city's foremost gang, but The Warriors are pegged as culpable. This sends the gang fleeing through the labyrinthine city. With every thug in Manhattan in vicious, homicidal pursuit, they must also overcome all obstacles in their way. Throughout, Hill keeps the onscreen violence absurd, exaggerated and unrealistic, downplaying death to an extreme degree; despite this fact, the film sparked a massive amount of controversy and an ugly backlash for allegedly inciting violence and destruction in several theaters where it initially played. James Remar, Michael Beck and Deborah Van Valkenburgh lead the ensemble cast. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Also screening Saturday @ 11:55pm
Screening All Week (1hr 38min)
Drama/ Horror (IMDB)
Experience three spine-tingling tales of terror to haunt your dreams. A debunker of all thing paranormal, Professor Phillip Goodman (Andy Nyman) has devoted his life to exposing phony psychics and fraudulent supernatural shenanigans on his own television show. His skepticism is put to the test, however, when he receives a file of three chilling, inexplicable cases: a night watchman (Paul Whitehouse) haunted by disturbing visions as he patrols an abandoned asylum; an edgy young man (Black Mirror's Alex Lawther) involved in a hellish car accident deep in the woods; and a wealthy former banker (Sherlock's Martin Freeman) visited by the poltergeist spirit of his unborn child. Even scarier: each of these macabre stories seems to have sinister connection to Professor Goodman's own life. Will they make a believer of him yet?
Opens Friday 4th (1hr 45min)
Horror/ Mystery/ Suspense (Rotten Tomatoes)
Paulina and Tyler visit Saipan to locate the ideal property for their new company resort. After finding the perfect location, they discover a hidden cave on the property and decide to explore with Alan, their local coordinator, and his assistant, Pepe. The cave reveals a long abandoned Japanese military base, dating back to WW2. Further investigation uncovers several dried up corpses, but curiosity outweighs fear and they walk further. From the darkness, an elderly man approaches; a man barely recognizable as human. Horrible deformities ravage his frail body, as if he had been living in the cave for his entire life. Alan panics and pushes the old man backward, sending him crashing into the wall with a force that ends the old man's life. A deafening explosion sends rocks and rubble everywhere. The intensity of the turbulence shakes the entire cave, knocking the group unconscious and seals them in the cave. They wake to find the dead body of the old man has disappeared, as well as the other corpses... Desperate to find an exit, they wander further into cave and encounter more sinister secrets in it depths. As the various sources and clues unwind the cave's mysteries, they'll learn that the most shocking conclusion still awaits them...
Screening All Weekend!
Double Feature
The Spiral Staircase (1946)
Wednesday 2nd & Thursday 3rd @ 7:30pm (1hr 23min)
Horror/ Mystery/ Suspense (Rotten Tomatoes)
Spiral Staircase is a thriller about a mute servant (Dorothy McGuire) who works in an spooky mansion that may house a killer who has been murdering women who have physical deformities.
-with-
On Dangerous Ground (1951)
Wednesday 2nd & Thursday 3rd @ 5:55pm & 9:05pm (1hr 22min)
Drama/ Noir (IMDB)
Robert Ryan plays Jim Wilson, a tough police detective embittered by years of dealing with low-life urban scum, in Nicholas Ray's moving film noir. After severely beating several suspects, Jim is assigned to a case far from the city to find the killer of a young girl. Joining the manhunt, in snow-covered terrain, Wilson finds himself paired with the victim's father, Walter Brent (Ward Bond), who plans to shoot the killer himself. When the two men come upon a cabin occupied by Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), a blind woman who is also the killer's sister, Wilson's life is changed forever. Mary, a generous and loving person who has cared for her mentally ill brother Danny (Sumner Williams) since the death of their parents, convinces Wilson to protect Danny from Brent. Wilson also promises to get help for Danny if he surrenders to him. Inspired by Mary's courage and recognizing Brent's rage as the mirror image of his own, Wilson gains the insight to free himself from his own blindness. The film includes a memorable score by Alfred Hitchcock favorite Bernard Herrmann. ~ Rovi
-Huntress
