Halloween is all about being spooked in the dark, and there’s no better place for that than a movie theatre. Sure, you could go see My Soul To Take, Paranormal Activity 2 or Saw 3D, but wouldn’t you rather settle down with an acknowledged horror classic and an informed, appreciative audience?
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Toronto’s screens are bursting with options this Halloween weekend. If you’re really committed, you can catch a different classic every night until the sun rises on All Saints Day.
Set everything up by revelling in the black-and-white beauty of She-Wolf Of London and James Whale’s Frankenstein tonight (Thursday, October 28) at the Fox, accompanied by vintage trailers and shorts. Then spend Friday through Sunday bouncing from one venue to another in a personalized Halloween experience.
The Bloor Cinema goes traditional, with late-night screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show Friday through Sunday, accompanied by live performers, and a Friday night double-bill of John Carpenter’s Halloween and Repo! The Genetic Opera, which will also feature a live cast. Sorry, folks, Halloween is movie-only – though there’s nothing stopping you from donning a William Shatner mask and wandering into the auditorium at random intervals, just to spice things up.
Over at the Toronto Underground Cinema, Halloween is a month-long event. They’ve been indulging in creature features and Ghostbusters double-bills for weeks now. Tonight, it’s old-school Italian splatter of Zombi 2 Friday, it’s the old-school American splatter of Pieces Saturday offers a great double-bill of Shadow Of The Vampire and the original Nosferatu and Sunday caps it all off with Marc Boggio’s serial-killer thriller Fear The Reaper and the still-undiluted horror of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
TIFF Bell Lightbox launches a limited run of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho today, with remixed surround sound, but there’s plenty of other scary stuff happening this weekend. Friday, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari screens with live musical accompaniment by Andrew Downing and his ensemble Saturday, it’s a double-bill of Mario Bava’s Planet Of The Vampires and Ridley Scott’s Alien. Daytime screenings include the tween-friendly features Bibi Blocksberg Saturday and Sunday and The Substitute on Sunday, with late-night shows of the decidedly more adult fare Dog Soldiers and The House Of The Devil Friday and Saturday, The Loved Ones Saturday and S&Man Saturday and Sunday.
And if your tongue is stuck firmly in cheek, the Royal is screening Best Worst Movie and Troll 2 Friday and Saturday, with an additional screening of Best Worst Movie Sunday night. Or you could go back to the Fox on Sunday and watch the austere isolation of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining give way to the splatterific excess of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. Can’t really go wrong there.
