I feel like I say this fairly often, but this is another a great week for the movies! Not only is Revenge, which recently played at the San Francisco International Film Festival, opening in select theatres (including the Drafthouse SF!), and we get to see two very different sides of Joan Crawford's career, but TONIGHT Leigh Whannell will be at the Alamo Drafthouse to present his new film Upgrade at a special early screening! By the time you read this, there may even still be a couple of tickets still available, so act fast!
Opening This Week
Limited Theatres Thursday 10th (1hr 48min)
Action/ Thriller (IMDB)
Jen (fearlessly embodied by Matilda Lutz, Rings) is enjoying a romantic getaway with her wealthy boyfriend which is suddenly disrupted when his sleazy friends arrive for an unannounced hunting trip. Tension mounts in the house until the situation abruptly--and viciously--intensifies, culminating in a shocking act that leaves Jen left for dead. Unfortunately for her assailants, Jen survives and reemerges with a relentless, wrathful intent: revenge. A white-knuckle tale of transgression and transformation, REVENGE gloriously blurs the lines of vengeance and survival while simultaneously delivering a ferocious dissection of gender and genre.
Special Screening
Monday 7th @ 7:30pm (1hr 35min)
Action/ Comedy/ Horror (IMDB)
After his wife is killed during a brutal mugging that also leaves him paralyzed, Grey Trace (Logan Marshall Green, SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, PROMETHEUS) is approached by a billionaire inventor with an experimental cure that will "upgrade" his body. The cure - an Artificial Intelligence implant called STEM - gives Grey physical abilities beyond anything experienced and the ability to relentlessly claim vengeance against those who murdered his wife and left him for dead.
Special guest Leigh Whannell will be at the Alamo presenting the film!
Terror Tuesday
Tuesday 8th @ 10:30pm (1hr 33min)
Horror/ Sci-Fi (IMDB)
Anthropologist Dr. Brockton (Joan Crawford) believes she has discovered the missing link in this flat science fiction drama. The creature is found in a cave and brought to her laboratory to undergo tests for her research. The hairy beast with the face of a monkey loves classical music and hates rock & roll. When one of the slack-jawed yokels opens his cage, he escapes and goes on a killing rampage as he tries to return to his cave. In a gentle moment with a little girl, the beast shows a tender side that recalls a scene from Frankenstein. Soon troops are called in, despite Brockton's protest to entomb the creature by dynamiting the entrance to the cave. This was the last film for Joan Crawford, an inglorious way to end a legendary film career.
Weird Wednesday
Wednesday 9th @ 10: 45pm (1hr35min)
Action/ Crime/ Sci-Fi (IMDB)
The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One- a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called "Judges" who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd (Karl Urban) is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge - a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of "Slo-Mo" experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed. -- (C) Lionsgate
Midnight Madness
Friday 11th @ 11:55pm (1hr 39min)
Drama (IMDB)
This film centers on Johnny, a man who has it all; great friends, a good job, and a gorgeous fiancée named Lisa. But Lisa's innocent act masks the fact that she's looking to bring Johnny down, and her manipulations are tearing Johnny apart. As Lisa informs her cancer-ridden mother, Claudette, that Johnny hit her (and he did not hit her, that is bull$&*t, he did not!), Johnny's best friend, Mark, finds his resistance to Lisa's seductive charms weakening. Meanwhile, local orphan Denny looks up to Johnny, and needs the older man's help after the teen rips off a drug dealer. What kind of drugs? It doesn't matter. Then guys play football in tuxedos, because you can play football anywhere.
Also Screening Saturday 12th @ 11:55pm
Tuesday 8th @ 9:30pm (1hr 30min)
Drama/ Mystery/ Thriller (IMDB)
A traumatized veteran, unafraid of violence, tracks down missing girls for a living. When a job spins out of control, Joe's nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered leading to what may be his death trip or his awakening.
Screening All Week (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...
Double Feature
Niagara (1953)
Wednesday 9th @ Thurday 10th @ 7:30pm (1hr 32min)
Noir/ Thriller (IMDB)
Belated honeymooners Polly (Jean Peters) and Ray Cutler (Casey Adams) arrive at their Niagara Falls cottage only to find that Rose (Marilyn Monroe) and George Loomis (Joseph Cotten) have not yet checked out. Though the Cutlers temporarily take another cabin, the lives of the two couples are bound together for the next two days. Polly discovers that Rose is having an affair and that George, though emotionally unstable, has good reason for his jealous rage. George accurately suspects that Rose openly flaunts her sexuality to make him act crazy in front of witnesses. This is part of Rose's plan: her lover Patrick (Richard Allan) will kill George and make it look like suicide or a disappearance. Instead, George kills Patrick, and he returns to kill Rose, but finds Polly instead. As she had been sympathetic to him, he asks her not to tell anyone that he is alive so he can simply disappear. But, realizing that he wants to kill Rose, Polly informs the police. What follows is escalating terror, with George stalking Rose, Rose desperately trying to leave town, the police searching for both of them, and finally George and Polly adrift in a boat heading for the precipice. In Henry Hathaway's Technicolor film noir, Niagara Falls serves as an apt metaphor for the destructive power of out-of-control carnal and murderous obsessions. ~ Steve Press, Rovi
-with-
Sudden Fear (1952)
Wednesday 9th & Thursday 10th @ 5:30pm & 9:15pm (1hr 50min)
Noir/ Thriller (IMDB)
Joan Crawford portrays a successful, independently wealthy playwright who fires struggling actor Jack Palance from her latest production. Eventually she and Palance kiss and kiss and kiss and make up, which leads to marriage. One day, Crawford turns on her dictaphone, only to hear the voice of Palance plotting her murder with tartish Gloria Grahame. But Crawford isn't a celebrated playwright for nothing; she takes to her typewriter and concocts a scenario that will hoist Palance on his own petard. There's a notably suspenseful climax, but Sudden Fear is so strident at times that it looks like a Carol Burnett Show parody.
-Huntress
