It isn’t just Doctober at The Belcourt: It might as well be Shocktober, since the theater is running double bills of classic, offbeat and bizarre horror movies on weekends all month. Each of this week’s twofers is capped by the stylish work of Italian horror great Dario Argento, the giallo maestro whose best films zero in on an audience’s most squeamish spots — specifically the vulnerability of (ick) eyes.
1975’s Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) is one of his best, a hatchet-murder shocker starring David Hemmings, gallons of gore, an unnerving Goblin prog-rock score and an infernal chattering doll that will haunt your nightmares. It’s paired tonight with Lucio Fulci’s notorious zombie-apocalypse bloodbath The Gates of Hell. (Below, we've posted the trailer, featuring one of the cinema's busiest pairs of gloved hands.)
Saturday brings one of the most underrated items in the Argento oeuvre, 1985’s Creepers (aka Phenomena), with 15-year-old Jennifer Connelly in her first leading role as a teen with psychic insect powers (!) befriended by a razor-wielding chimp (!!) while menaced by a serial killer (!!!) over a soundtrack featuring Bill Wyman and Motorhead (!!!!). You do not want to miss the second feature: the insane 1990 killer-baboon-vs.-LARPers thriller Shakma, whose trailer works like nitrous oxide on Belcourt audiences. More info here.
Deep Red:
Phenomena:
