New Horror Movie Series Shock Theater to Deliver Monthly Fright

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on May 19, 2011 3:40PM

If there's one thing we know we love, it's classic horror movies being projected in a dark room through honest-to-God celluloid. So we're among the happiest people to find out that CIMMFest and former Bank of America Cinema programmer Michael Phillips has a new monthly program called Shock Theater at the Wicker Park Arts Center.

Screenings will take place on the first Friday every month, with a start time (9p.m.) and location (a church basement) well-chosen to heighten the mood. Shock Theater kicks off with a double bill of haunted house classics, William Castle's immortal The House on Haunted Hill followed by The Screaming Skull, on June 3. With a live appearances by "Emergo, the Ghastly Ghoul," and "the REAL Screaming Skull" as well as offers of "free burials for anyone who dies of fright," it sounds like a must-attend for any local self-respecting fans of the genre. Sister Helen Highwater of the Underground Multiplex will serve as hostess, with more guests on tap for the rest of the schedule:

June 3: Haunted Houses
The House on Haunted Hill (William Castle, 1959)
The Screaming Skull (Alex Nichol, 1958)

July 1: Late Edgar Ulmer
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)
Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)

August 5: Roger Corman's House
Dementia 13 (Francis Ford Coppola, 1963)
The Terror (Roger Corman et al., 1963)

September 2: Horrors from Space
The Phantom Planet (William Marshall, 1961)
Night of the Blood Beast (Bernard Kowalski, 1958)

October 7: Italian Chills
Nightmare Castle (Mario Caiano, 1965)
Caltiki the Undying Monster (Riccardo Freda, 1959)

November 4: Castaway Dismay
Bloodlust! (Ralph Brooke, 1961)
She-Demons (Richard Cunha, 1958)

December 2: Frankenstein's Lovely Ladies
Lady Frankenstein (Mel Welles and Aureliano Luppi, 1971)
Frankenstein's Daughter (Richard Cunha, 1958)

Shock Theater screenings will take place the first Friday of every month at Wicker Park Arts Center, 2215 W. North Ave., beginning June 3.