In October, a movie-lover’s fancy turns to tales of decapitations, eviscerations and general heart palpitations. But rounding up a DVD to watch at home can be such an inadequate way to get the Halloween heebie-jeebies. Better to gather with 100 or so random acquaintances for a little mass hysteria into the wee hours of the morning.
As part of the Salt Lake Film Society’s October “Tower of Terror” weekend late-night program of horror classics, X96 presents a special afterhours marathon quadruple feature. Radio From Hell morning-show hosts Bill Allred, Kerry Jackson and Gina Barberi have compiled four classics and will host a feast for insomniacs with a taste for vintage gruesomeness.
Leading off at 11 p.m. is William Friedkin’s 1973 adaptation of The Exorcist, the movie that became a phenomenon for freaking viewers out to the point of unconsciousness. At approximately 1 a.m., get a look at what Peter Jackson was up to before he journeyed to Middle Earth in the 1992 zombie tale Dead Alive (aka Braindead), in which a young man’s domineering mother starts a zombie plague. Follow up that insanity with the early work of another blockbuster-auteur-to-be: Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 (pictured). And if you’re still awake at 5 a.m., get ready to be re-introduced to Michael Myers in John Carpenter’s original 1978 Halloween.
A single $10 admission gets you into all four films. Do you dare stay up all night for a collection of scares that could keep you up the next night, too?
X96 Dusk-Till-Dawn Horror-Thon @ Broadway Centre Cinemas, 111 E. 300 South (moved from Tower Theatre), Oct. 22, 11 p.m., $10. SaltLakeFilmSociety.org