Facets' Fright School Won't Let Halloween Sneak Up on You

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 29, 2011 6:30PM

With a slight edge over Valentine's Day and Easter, the holiday whose approach we are most likely to be reminded of by the merchandising visionaries of chain drugstores has to be Halloween. Every year, a good five weeks before the date of its observance, orange and black, jack o' lanterned geegaws and endcap displays of candy take us by surprise. We went to one Walgreen's for tissues, and here they went and reminded us that darker days and chilly temperatures are lurking. Is this excellent price on bulk candy corn supposed to make up for that?

Thank goodness the folks at Facets haven't been as asleep at the wheel as we have. Starting this Friday and running through Halloween weekend, the third annual horror-themed session of their ongoing Night School series, dubbed Fright School, packs more cinematic punch than ever. A mere $5 gets you into the midnight screening as well as a pre-movie lecture, a selection of grindhouse and cult movie trailers, a post-screening discussion, and a packet of information about that evening's film.

Things kick off on a participatory note, with an interactive evening from Underground Multiplex co-founders Lew Ojeda and Joseph R. Lewis, whose "nunsploitation" film Sisters of No Mercy will be presented along with live circus performers, musicians, dancers and an evil priest.

The rest of the schedule is filled with a very well balanced but interesting mix: recent cult classics (Donnie Darko and Ginger Snaps), legendary extreme, infrequently shown works (Bloodsucking Freaks, I Drink Your Blood), horror classics beloved by those in the know (I Walked with a Zombie, The Old Dark House) and unsettling shorter form offerings from name directors (David Lynch, Monte Hellman, Federico Fellini, Tim Burton). The series finishes up with a nifty final weekend pairing of Devil's Rain an orgy of satanism featuring the likes of William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine and John Travolta, and The Frighteners, a gem from Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson's almost hard-to-remember apprenticeship as a craftsman of very funny horror films.

Fright School runs every Friday and Saturday night through October. Screenings start at midnight, and admission is $5. Tickets are available online.