FIVE NIGHTS OF TERROR! AT THE AERO

It’s sometimes hard enough keeping an entire audience awake through one film. So what’s the secret to making sure nobody snoozes doing a seven movie marathon like the one presented by the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre (1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica, Calif.) on October 27? First and foremost, zombies. Or at least that’s what Dusk-to-Dawn Horrorthon programmer Grant Moninger says.

“No one falls asleep to zombies,” Grant said. “That’s impossible.” Grant does admit he is a bit biased on the subject, however. He is from Pittsburgh, which is where George Romero is from and where “Night of the Living Dead” was filmed in 1968. Pittsburgh is also the home to Zombie Fest and Tom Savini, who directed the 1990 remake of Romero’s low budget iconic masterpiece. “I’m quite proud of being from the first city in the United States that granted zombies the right to vote,” Grant quips. Wait, he is joking isn’t he?

Regardless, the horrorthon gets “its dead on” at 7:30 p.m. with zombies in the form of “The Return of the Living Dead.” The unofficial sequel to “Night of the Living Dead” is a gory, yet hilarious treat from 1985 that features a punked out and erotic Scream Queen Linnea Quigley. In recent years, some have dubbed director Dan O’Bannon, who attended the University of Southern California with John Carpenter and wrote “Dark Star,” “Alien” and many, many others, the godfather of “Shaun of the Dead.”

“If the 1980’s were good for anything it was the all night horror movie marathon,” Grant said. “When it came to blood, breasts, chills and the bizarre, the eighties were the greatest. We are presenting five of the eighties’ finest.”

Aside from “Return of the Living Dead,” the horrorthon will screen Max Kalmanowicz’s zombified killer kids film “The Children” (’80), Lucio Fulci’s zombie/hell double take “The Gates of Hell” (’80) and it’s semi-sequel “The Beyond” (‘81), as well as Stuart Gordon’s demonic creature feature “From Beyond” (’86).

“In a horrorthon you must challenge the audience’s psyche,” Grant said. “Your job is to entertain them as well as make them think they are losing their minds. At 6 a.m. Fulci will make my job easy. Sleep deprivation, over stimulation, and the shakes from coffee overdoses plus Fulci equals the penultimate horrorthon psychedelic freak out.”

The septuple freak out will be rounded out with the 1932 circus morality play “Freaks” and Wes Craven’s infamous 1972 debut “The Last House on the Left.” Grant said both films were a given, calling “Freaks” a “must see classic,” especially since it’s the film’s 75th anniversary. “Dracula” director Tod Browning cast actual people with handicaps and deformities instead of using special effects and makeup in the film that was hard to come by for many years and banned in a number of countries. Grant also called “The Last House on the Left” absolute “mind blowing horror” and added, “With the surplus of bad rape-torture films coming out, it’s great to show how it all began with the Wes Craven masterpiece.”

Grant said there will also be unannounced weird trailers and shorts shown between films and tons of giveaways. “I stay up all night with the audience, become totally slap happy and occasionally hurl candy with high powered velocity into the crowd,” Grant said jokingly. “We give away free swag, a membership, t-shirts and keep the movie goers excited, awake, and help to make them feel a little crazier.”

Last year, Grant says they screened several clips by “twisted genius” Damon Packard and gave away prizes for: trivia answers, people who were wearing glasses or jean jackets with heavy metal patches and anyone who was half leopard. “There was a surprising amount of people who claimed to be half human and half giant cat,” Grant said.

Grant also learned something quite frightening about himself and today’s silver screen audience. “Last year we showed ‘Re-Animator’ and there was a surprising amount of people who had never seen it,” Grant said of Stuart Gordon’s most popular film. “That was the most horrifying moment of the night. Not only did I feel suddenly old, but it was a realization that a lot of young people have never actually seen how fun horror films can be.”

So with that in mind, Grant decided to not only make sure and throw another Gordon film into the mix, but to come up with enough other surprises with the programming aim of making the night scary, sexy and twisted, while giving audiences a “What the hell am I watching?” feeling.

“The Dusk-to-Dawn Horrorthon is a chance to experience great horror films on the big screen with friends or hundreds of your closest strangers and lose your minds as the staff slowly loses their minds too,” Grant said. “I had been to many of these in Pittsburgh as a teen and it’s a great chance to run the horrorthon and do it right. It’s our favorite night of the year at the Aero and we hope we have come up with the perfect ingredients that will make the night both fun and horrific.”

Special horrothon prices are $20 for general admission, $18 for students and seniors, and $15 for members. These prices include snacks and food all night. For those that can’t make the horrorthon or don’t quite have the endurance, the Halloween movie mayhem at the Aero Theatre begins the Thursday before and runs through All Hallow’s Eve.

Things get started with a double feature of Robert Wise’s 1963 haunted house classic “The Haunting” and Lewis Allen’s 1944 ghost story “The Uninvited” on Oct. 25. A pair of seventies movies invade the cineplex Oct. 26 in the form of Donald Cammell’s 1977 film “Demon Seed,” which is based on a Dean R. Koontz novel, and Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

A family matinee screens Oct. 28 with Robert Mulligan’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic novel stars Gregory Peck as lawyer Atticus Finch, who AFI named the Greatest Hero of American cinema. Following the 5:30 p.m. Sunday screening, the Art Directors Guild will host a presentation on the career of Henry Bumstead, who won an Oscar for the film, with an introduction by Norman Newberry (art director of “Monster House” and “War of the Worlds”).

The Halloween week of horror wraps up Oct. 31 with Richard Donner’s “The Omen.” The 1976 demonic possession thriller is a blend of studio respectability and exploitation, making it a perfect finale to the Aero’s trick-or-treating fun.

While zombies might be the key to a successful horrorthon, finding equilibrium like “The Omen” offers seems to be what helps a week of programming work. That and being able to track down the movies. “The biggest challenge for Grant and I is, as always, a question of balance between more well-known popular titles and films that are more obscure but just as worthy,” said Chris D, who co-programmed the week’s fun. “Then there is the ongoing problem of finding prints. There are always titles we would like to show, such as the original ‘Island of Lost Souls’ with Charles Laughton, etc., but there are no screenable prints.”

Perhaps Chris and Grant can get their hands on the 1932 Erle Kenton sci-fi/horror film, featuring Bela Lugosi about mutated, half-human abominations, next year. Most moviegoers of today would probably find the faithful adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel “The Island of Dr. Moreau” a tad bit slow though. But then again, that’s nothing double billing it with an eighties’ zombie film couldn’t fix.

For more information or to purchase advanced tickets, visit the American Cinematheque’s official site.

- CCF, October 2007