The Prytania Theater Uptown is kickstarting Halloween week with a bang by rolling out its KILL-O-RAMA lineup, offering some of the greatest horror films ever made on the big, bloody screen!
THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974)
If there was a film that represented the platonic ideal of cinema to this writer, Tobe Hooper’s indelible classic “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” holds the crown. One of the most important American films ever made (and I am not being one ounce hyperbolic), this sweat-soaked, deep-fried Southern schlock fest has only grown in acclaim for the past 50 years, from playing the porn theaters of Time’s Square to recently being showcased at MOMA. Now restored in a GORGEOUS 4K restoration, Leatherface and his family of cackling ghouls have never looked better. These cannibalistic capitalists are primed to keep slicing and dicing their way through the generations and retain their placement on the Mt. Rushmore of Horror.
I recently had the chance to see this 4K restoration at The Broad Theater and couldn’t pull my eyes from the screen. From the opening scroll voiced by John Larroquette detailing the “historical accuracy” of the events to follow, all the way through Leatherface’s sunrise dance of death, I was grinning ear to ear. Time has only calcified the film’s effectiveness; with my audience of horror fans laughing and leaping from their seats in equal measure. It’s a special movie and one that somehow is often ignored for the artistic achievement it is. If you have never had the pleasure of witnessing the greatest film of the greatest decade in American cinema for yourself, I can think of no place better to rectify that than at the Prytania this week.
I’ll surely be somewhere in the theater beside you with a big, goofy grin on my face.
“The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is playing at The Prytania Theater Uptown.
THE SHINING (1980)
Another film unappreciated in its time, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” is a majestic spectacle of spectral delights on the big screen. Capturing a creeping unease and paranoid panic that turned off audiences in 1980, Kubrick’s masterpiece (one of many) is a titanic work of adaptation, as anyone who has read King’s equally masterful novel can attest. While King’s ghosts are literal, Kubrick’s are internal, emotional and possibly even nonexistent. There’s a limbo that you enter, crossing the threshold of the Overlook Hotel as if shifting from reality into someplace unmoored from our reality and all the more sinister for it. With performances so iconic that they are often ignored for their brilliance from Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall and Scatman Cruthers, the film captures a specific style of fear better than any film made before or since: that sinking feeling of being watched or that the person sitting next to you might not be who you think they are.
A film so studied that it has almost circled back into parody, “The Shining” is the highest brow of popcorn horror; the kind that lingers like a kernel stuck to your back molar and will haunt you long after leaving the warmth of the theater.
“The Shining” is playing at The Prytania Theater Uptown.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) with THE WELL HUNG SPEAKERS
Our resident “Rocky Horror Picture Show” Shadow Cast ‘The Well Hung Speakers’ are laying claim to the Prytania Uptown for the final week of Halloween. A storied tradition that dates back to when “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was simply a reviled film that folks started making their own, there’s no better way to enjoy Richard O’Brien’s seminal work of absurdist, queer, erotic, schlocky, musical brilliance than with a full theater of your closest toast throwing, screen yelling, dancing in the aisles friends. ‘The Well Hunt Speakers’ are a New Orleans institution and always bring the house down. With shows throughout the week, including an always raucous midnight Halloween spectacular, there’s no better place to give yourself over to absolute pleasure and do the TIME WARP AGAIN!
You’ll be glad you did!
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is playing at The Prytania Theater Uptown.
