Presented by the Music Box and Movieside Film Festival, this 24-hour marathon of horror movies begins at noon on Saturday, October 13, in the Music Box’s main theater, 3733 N. Southport. Tickets for the whole marathon are $29, and ticket holders may leave and reenter the theater. Showtimes are approximate; for more information call 773-871-6607 or visit musicboxtheater.com.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Bud and Lou as two delivery men with an oblong package for Frankenstein’s castle. As burlesque and later radio comics, Abbott and Costello found their metier in bizarre patter routines; they never got the hang of the kiddie slapstick Universal assigned to them, and their physical comedy is low, heavy, and graceless. This 1948 effort is probably the last of their watchable films, though it’s a long way from their best. Critics used to complain that their films weren’t plotted; these days, they look like Dickens. With Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., and Glenn Strange. Charles Barton directed. 83 min. (DK) a 3 PM.
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R Dead of Night When writer-director Bob Clark died earlier this year, he was eulogized mainly for his nostalgic comedy A Christmas Story (1984), but he got his start with a string of eerily effective horror flicks like this 1974 feature (also known as Deathdream and The Night Andy Came Home). Four years before The Deer Hunter and Coming Home, it centers on an elderly couple (John Marley, Lynn Carlin) devastated by the news that their son (Richard Backus) has died in Vietnam. When he turns up on their doorstep they’re overjoyed, not realizing he’s a zombie that needs periodic injections of fresh blood. (“I died for you,” he tells one victim. “Why shouldn’t you return the favor?”) The equation of post-traumatic stress disorder with the zombie genre’s living death is a stroke of pop-culture poetry worthy of George Romero, and Joe Dante drew heavily on the movie for his recent antiwar chiller Homecoming. PG, 88 min. (JJ) a 7:20 AM.
