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Monday, April 16, 2018

Screenings in the Bay (Monday to Friday): Basket Case 2, Idle Hands, Vampire Clay, Ministry of Fear, The Endless


So many of the bay area's theatres make an appearance in this week's movie highlights, and everyone has something good playing! We start the week with something I've been wanting to watch for years... Basket Case 2! This will be screening in glorious 35mm at the Alamo Drafthouse as the Terror Tuesday movie of the week. On this same night, the San Francisco International Film Festival comes to a close for the year.

The middle of the week is dominated by the Stanford Theatre's fear double feature, which will happen on both Wednesday and Thursday. I love the Stanford, and they have so many cool movies coming up, it seems like the perfect time to visit.

And Friday is also a busy day, as Midnites for Maniacs brings Dead Man to the Roxie Theatre, followed by the Nippon Nights series screening of Vampire Clay, which sounds absolutely insane.

Hope you guys can make it out to the movies this week!

[EDIT] The Endless has been added to the Alamo Drafthouse's calendar, starting this Friday 20th! And directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead will be in attendance! They will intro both the 7:30pm and the 10:15pm showtimes, and also do a Q&A after the 7:30 show. If you can't make it to these times, the film will also screen all weekend and next week.



*Opening This Week*


Friday 20th @ 7:30pm & 10:15pm (1hr 51min)
Horror/ Sci-Fi/ Suspense (Rotten Tomatoes)
Following their Lovecraftian modern cult classic SPRING, acclaimed filmmakers Moorhead and Benson return with this mind-bending thriller that follows two brothers who receive a cryptic video message inspiring them to revisit the UFO death cult they escaped a decade earlier. Hoping to find the closure that they couldn't as young men, they're forced to reconsider the cult's beliefs when confronted with unexplainable phenomena surrounding the camp. As the members prepare for the coming of a mysterious event, the brothers race to unravel the seemingly impossible truth before their lives become permanently entangled with the cult.

Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead will intro both showtimes on Friday 20th,
& do a Q&A after the 7:30 show!

Also Screening All Weekend



Monday 16th @ 10:15pm  (1hr 56min)
Action/ Crime/ Drama (IMDB)
William Friedkin's crime thriller, based on a book by U.S. Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, concerns an arrogant Secret Service official who wants to get his man at any price. Willem Dafoe plays Eric Masters, an ultra-smooth counterfeiter who has managed to sidestep the police for years. He is so up-front about his dealings, in fact, that when some undercover agents try to make a deal with him at his health club, Eric tells them, "I've been coming to this gym three times a week for five years. I'm an easy guy to find. People know they can trust me." But when young and eager Secret Service agent Richard Chance (William L. Petersen) finds out that his partner has been cold-bloodedly murdered by Eric, he trains his relentlessness upon capturing Eric -- whether it means robbery, murder, or exploiting his friends and associates. As Chance erases the dividing line between good and evil, he drags his new partner John Vukovich (John Pankow) and Ruth Lanier (Darlanne Fluegel), an ex-con, down into the maelstrom with him.


Terror Tuesday

Tuesday 17th @ 9:45pm (1hr 30min)
Comedy/ Horror (IMDB)
Apparently not dead as the ending of the first Basket Case movie led viewers to believe, the Bradley brothers, those severed Siamese twin brothers--one normal, the other the malformed " basket case,"--are back in business in this sequel. Here they escape their hospital confinement and head to a local freak house where they hope to live happily ever after. Unfortunately they're tracked by a tabloid reporter who's after the scoop of the decade. This is unabashedly violent and wackoed fanfare made only for aficionados of depraved and disgusting drivel. Apparently there are enough of these viewers to warrant this follow-up film!

Weird Wednesday

Wednesday 18th @ 9:45pm (1hr 28min)
Comedy (IMDB)
A businessman's (Joe Don Baker) threat to close down their beloved video arcade prompts a group of teens to fight for their rights in this comedy also known as Video Madness.




AniMondays

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999)
Monday 16th @ 7:30pm (1hr 42min)
Animation/ Drama/ Fantasy (IMDB)
Hiroyuki Okiura and Mamoru Oshii follow up on their landmark animation feature Ghost in the Shell with this despotic sci-fi flick that fuses fascism, Hitchcock, and Little Red Riding Hood. The film opens with a detailed retelling of an alternate postwar Japanese history. A massive industrialization policy sharply separates the haves from the have nots, resulting in crime, protests, and riots. In an effort to curb the power of armed militia groups, the Tokyo City government sets up an elite group of paramilitaries called the Capitol Police Organization. Instead of peace and harmony, the presence of this new force only encourages the terrorists to unify, and full-scale war erupts in the streets. Cut to a street riot in process, and a young high schooler in a red coat making a bomb hand-off. Later, the Capitol Police catch her and her terrorist comrades in the Tokyo sewers. While her cohorts get gunned down mercilessly, the girl -- after the cop nearest to her fails to pull the trigger -- blows herself up instead. The cop, Kazuki Fuse, survives with a few scratches thanks to his stormtrooper-like armor, but suffers both psychological and professional damage. Aside from the mental and career traumas, he is also made the scapegoat for the incident. Soon afterwards, he meets a young lass named Kei Amemiya who says she is the dead girl's elder sister. As the two make furtive efforts toward a romance, Kazuki finds himself increasingly embroiled in a complex web of lies and deceit between the Capitol Police Organization and the Tokyo Police department.




Film School Rejects Presents

Wednesday 18th @ 9:30pm (1hr 32min)
Comedy/ Fantasy/ Horror (IMDB)
The devil will find work for idle hands to do, so what happens when he goes on the prowl for a partner in crime and ends up with an utterly clueless 17-year-old slacker? The result is a lot more moronics than demonics in the wry comedy-horror IDLE HANDS. Anton Tobias wakes up Halloween morning to discover-after watching some TV and perusing the contents of the fridge, oblivious to the pool of blood on the floor-that his parents have been turned into a couple of headless Halloween decorations. After hanging out with his equally irresponsible friends, Mick and Pnub, Anton discovers that his right hand has a very bloodthirsty mind of its own, and it's hell-bent on wreaking deadly havoc with or without him. Will the gates of Hell open wide at the high school Halloween Dance and drag an innocent soul into eternal damnation? They just might in IDLE HANDS, when the forces of good and evil face off in a showdown full of diabolical comedy and bloodcurdling terror.



Friday 20th @ 7pm (2hrs)
Drama/ Fantasy/ Western (IMDB)
Jim Jarmusch takes his quirky, uniquely modern sensibilities back in time, with this western black comedy about a city slicker turned gunfighter, on the run with an enigmatic Indian buddy in the Northwest wilderness.


Nippon Nights

Friday 20th @ 9:15pm (1hr 20min)
Horror (Rotten Tomatoes)
A plasticine demon devours the denizens of a rural art school.





Ministry of Fear (1944)
Wednesday 18th & Thursday 19th @ 7:30pm (1hr 26min)
Crime/ Drama/ Noir (IMDB)
An innocent man is drawn into a web of espionage when he unwittingly comes into possession of a crucial piece of microfilm in this shadowy, ominous film noir. Fritz Lang's adaptation of Graham Greene's novel is filled with unusual touches, beginning with the fact that protagonist Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) has just been released from a mental asylum. To celebrate his return to the real world, he visits a local carnival, only to accidentally receive a "prize" meant for a Nazi agent. When he discovers the error, he turns for help to a detective, whose investigations only make the matter more complicated. Neale soon winds up on the run from both the Nazis and the police, who mistakenly believe him guilty of murder.

-with-


Journey into Fear (1942)
Wednesday 18th & Thursday 19th @ 6:10pm & 9:10pm (1hr 8min)
Drama/ Noir/ Thriller (IMDB)
In this film, Joseph Cotten stars as an American gunnery engineer up to his armpits in international intrigue. Targeted for extermination by the Gestapo, Cotten secretly books passage on a steamer bound to Batumi. From the outset, it is no secret that one of the passengers is a Nazi assassin.





Monday 16th @ 8:45pm (1hr 44min)
Horror (IMDB)
In a small, remote village in upstate Quebec, things have changed. Locals are not the same anymore--their bodies are breaking down and they have turned against their loved ones. A handful of survivors goes hiding into the woods, looking for others like them.



-Huntress

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