So, big surprise: we went hard on horror movies this month. Central Cinema grew out of the Knoxville Horror Film Festival (celebrating its tenth year October 17-21) and we always figured our Octobers would be stacked with the scary stuff, but this is honestly kind of ridiculous.
First off, we're presenting a series of Universal Monsters double features: The Wolf Man & Creature from the Black Lagoon run back to back October 4-7, followed by Dracula & The Invisible Man October 11-14 and Frankenstein & Bride of Frankenstein October 25-28.
Beyond those black & white favorites, we'll be digging into the contemporary horror canon with more double feature madness. October 6 & 7 we're spotlighting renegade horror director Frank Henenlotter with Brain Damage and Basket Case; October 12-14 we present John Carpenter's The Thing, paired with the original The Thing From Another World Friday & Saturday; October 19 & 20 brings the Central Cinema debut of the much-requested seasonal favorite Hocus Pocus; and the pre-Halloween weekend of October 26-28 brings a double feature of Re-Animator and Bride Of Re-Animator, the anthology favorite Tales Of Halloween, and a six-day run of Carpenter's original Halloween culminating in a Halloween day triple-feature of Halloween, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers!
We've also got a few specialty events to pepper in: October 10 we celebrate Ed Wood's Birthday with a $5 screening of Plan 9 From Outer Space; October 17 & 20 local film historian Kelly Robinson brings Knoxferatu 3 to Central Cinema for her annual silent horror program, complete with a live scoring of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari; and our Martial Arts Theatre series returns October 24 with the supreme horror oddity The Boxer's Omen.
And, of course, this month's centerpiece is Knoxville Horror Film Fest X, a four-day celebration of independent, short-form and classic horror taking place at Central Cinema (evening 10/18, daytime 10/19, all day 10/21) and Regal Cinemas Downtown West (evening 10/19, all day 10/20) and featuring an intense lineup of more than 40 short films, 14 feature presentations, our annual Grindhouse Grind-out competition, a live podcast from Shock Waves, and more!
It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
