Presented by the Music Box and Movieside Film Festival, this 24-hour marathon of horror movies begins at noon on Saturday, October 15, in the Music Box’s main theater, 3733 N. Southport. Tickets for the whole marathon are $24, and ticket holders may leave and reenter the theater. Showtimes are approximate; for more information call 773-871-6604 or visit www.musicboxtheatre.com.
Pulse
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Archetypal 50s science fiction–light on brains and heavy on sexual innuendo (1954). But director Jack Arnold has a flair for this sort of thing, and if there really is anything frightening about a man dressed up in a rubber suit with zippers where the gills ought to be, Arnold comes close to finding it. All in all, somewhat better than The Mole People. 79 min. (DK) Screening in 3-D. (4:00)
Short works by Chicago filmmakers. 59 min. (5:45)
Costume contest and burlesque show
Scanners
Years before Wes Craven’s Scream was hailed as a postmodern horror movie, producer Dario Argento and director Lamberto Bava were playing around with the conventions of the genre in this 1985 Italian feature. Two young women visit a nightclub/movie palace to watch a sneak preview of a zombie movie, but during the show the audience members are serially stalked and killed by real zombies. The interplay of two- and three-dimensional space is a natural for Bava, a movie brat whose father, Mario, directed such Italian horror classics as Black Sunday and Lisa and the Devil. But once the audience members have barricaded themselves inside the theater, this devolves into a Night of the Living Dead knockoff, enlivened only by the voluptuous gore. Dubbed in English. 88 min. (JJ) (4:55)
