Presented by SUPER-HORROR-RAMA!
August 15 & 16, SUPER-HORROR-RAMA! pulls those dusty books down from the shelf and ushers age-old terror tales from the tattered page to the shining screen in a feat of cinematic sorcery that will make you wide-eyed with wonder and terror!
These grimy and grotesque nightmares by legendary Czech New Wave filmmaker Juraj Herz are more vivid than ever thanks to brand new restorations courtesy of Severin Films from their expansive collection of classic folk horror, and both films will be introduced by Czech language student Emily Barney and Chicago Underground Film Festival programmer Raul Benitez!
In The Ninth Heart, an evil astrologist (complete with unibrow and stringy combover) captures the princess and collects human hearts to restore his youth and give him power over the living and the dead. The film is slapstick at first as a young student falls in love with a traveling marionettist, befriends a clown (who looks just like Grandpa Munster), and wreaks havoc with a newfound invisibility cloak, but the mood grows heavier as our unlikely hero journeys by ferry to a moonlit world with a clockwork castle embedded in craggy white dunes. We wouldn't be surprised if this gothic nightmare reinforced Tim Burton's affection for the fashionably ghastly or intensified Guillermo del Toro's love of mechanical marvels.
We're also screening Juraj Herz' Beauty and the Beast (1978) on Friday, August 15 at 11:45pm!
Every ticket includes a Limited Edition Pinback Button (new design each night), and every show kicks off with Giveaways donated by The Shadowboxery, Cryptid Craft Studio, Night Natalie, Drive-In Asylum, Full Bleed Zine, and Bumps in the Night for the first folks who answer our trivia questions. The category is folk horror, so get ready!
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