If you love all things paranormal then you know that autumn means more than long pants and pumpkin-spiced everything, and that the haints, haunts and horrors of Halloween were made to last more than just one night. There’s plenty of new offerings on screens big and small to put a little fear in your fall; here’s a must-see list leading up to Halloween night.
Halloween (2018)
Duh. Fans are rabid over the chance to see Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) back in action facing off with Michael Myers, exactly 40 years after the first Halloween movie was made in 20 days for $200,000. John Carpenter is back as composer and executive producer on the film he made famous in 1978, directed this time around by David Gordon Green (Stronger). Laurie is now a grandmother who is navigating the relationship with a daughter (Judy Greer) whose childhood was formed by Laurie’s trauma, and the teenaged granddaughter (Andi Matichak) who’s largely oblivious to it. She has spent the past 40 years preparing for the inevitable day that Michael Myers escapes from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, giving up friends and family with her paranoid preparations. But don’t let the grey hair fool you: Laurie, and Curtis too, is one formidable foe. Halloween opens today in theatres.
Rosemary’s Baby
It’s the 50th anniversary of one of the scariest horror films of all time (THE scariest, if you happen to be pregnant). Based on Ira Levinson’s book, the film tells the story of a young couple expecting their first child. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) experiences a high degree of anxiety during the pregnancy: you would too, if your struggling-actor husband (John Cassavetes) had made a pact with the devil. The film was reportedly offered to Alfred Hitchcock, who was underwhelmed by the source material, so it went to Roman Polanski instead. Farrow’s decision to stick with the late-running project rather than join her husband Frank Sinatra on the set of The Detective may have been the reason the actress was surprised by divorce papers in the middle of shooting. Starting this week Rosemary’s Baby is available on iTunes with more than 40 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage for the first time on a digital platform.
Mary Shelley
Available on demand this week is Haifaa Al-Mansour’s dark and brooding Mary Shelley, starring Elle Fanning as the author who finds love, scandal, loss and literary greatness, all while still a teenager. She was the daughter of “radical” parents: philosopher William Godwin (Stephen Dillane) and famed feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died days after Mary was born. She seemed destined for an unconventional life even before she met charismatic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglas Booth), with whom she ran off, Mary’s troublesome stepsister (Bel Powley) in tow. The film delves into the claret- and opium-fuelled drawing rooms populated by Coleridge and Lord Byron (a deliciously rakish Tom Sturridge), the new mania for galvanism and science, and the famous night that was the genesis for Mary’s most famous creation: Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus.
Cineplex Odeon Theatres limited runs
Speaking of that first famous science fiction novel, do not miss the National Theatre’s production of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” part of a series of stage performances and cinema classics that Cineplex Odeon is bringing to the big screens for a limited time just in time for the Halloween season. It’s directed by Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Dr. Frankenstein. After being created and then cast out into a cruel and hostile universe, the Creature vows revenge on his Maker. Fun fact: throughout the play’s run, Cumberbatch and Miller alternated roles. Shows locally at Park & Tilford Oct. 22, 24 and 28.
If you like TV’s Walking Dead and you haven’t seen the film that birthed the zombie genre, now’s your chance. The restored and remastered horror classic Night of the Living Dead from George Romero turns 50 this year and is playing at local Cineplex Odeon theatres Oct. 24, 26 and 30th. The film was groundbreaking in its casting of a black actor (Duane Jones) as the lead, and provided social commentary on 1960s America that still resonates today.
For one-night only: the shot-in-Vancouver sensation Twilight, starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, screens in Vancouver Oct. 29. See Bella and Edward and the film that defined the vampire-werewolf craze for a decade.
Hotel Transylvania 3 reprises this weekend as part of the budget-friendly ($2.99!) Family Favourites Series. And live action show The Great Big Boo! plays locally at Park and Tilford Oct. 20, 21 and 22. Beetlejuice, featuring young Michael Keaton, Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and plays this weekend at The Park.
At Home
A quick Internet search can point you in the direction of horror favourites to enjoy on home screens, but you can’t go wrong if you include this year’s A Quiet Place and Hereditary, or The Shining, The Babadook, The Thing, The Host, Get Out, The Others, The Ring, 28 Days Later, Goodnight Mommy, Carrie, It Follows, Poltergeist, Dawn of the Dead, Psycho, A Girl Walks Home At Night, The Cabin in the Woods or The Witch.
