The Grand Illusion

40th anniversary of Stuart Gordon's crazy, gory, and gooey sci-fi body horror classic, starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, and produced by Charles Band and Brian Yuzna (SOCIETY).

Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel), an acclaimed physicist, has perfected his newest invention: the Resonator, a machine which allows those near to it to glimpse life not visible to the naked eye. Imagining the discoveries he could make, Pretorius begins to go mad, much to the concern of his young assistant, Crawford Tillinghast (Combs). However, after the machine malfunctions during a highly sensitive experiment and Pretorius is found brutally murdered, Crawford is fingered as the primary suspect.

Confined to an asylum, Crawford becomes the ward of Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Crampton), who takes a special interest in his tales of the strange creatures able to be seen while the machine is operating and convinces him to help her rebuild the device, woefully unaware of the terrifying, hidden world she is about to enter…

“This movie is great fun… a funny, horrific grossout.” Gene Siskel

“It’s perverse, bizarre and even stomach-churning at times, but you’ve honestly never seen anything quite like it.” Rob Vaux, Collider

In remembrance of special effects and makeup artist legend Screaming Mad George, a screening of one of the ickiest, most original body horror shockers of all time.

Teenager Bill Whitney has always felt like the odd one out in his wealthy, upper-class Beverly Hills family. But his sense of alienation takes a sinister turn when he hears an audio recording of his sister’s coming-out party, which seems to implicate his family in a bizarre, ritualistic orgy. Packing stomach-churning grue courtesy of Screaming Mad George and thought-provoking social commentary in equal measure, Brian Yuzna's SOCIETY is a biting satire that culminates in the most gag-inducing “climax” in all of horror history.

“Coming out of the decadent 80s, Society’s message is certainly not new or subtle, but it does feel more relevant than ever.” Adam Fleet, The Guardian

“Like Screaming Mad George, [Society] is a true original, which makes it an ideal testament to the man and his legacy.” Katie Rife, Inverse

EGG is a searing Y2K-era cocktail of creature features, body horror, psychological thrillers and vaporwave aesthetics. This surreal effort by the highly prolific Yukihiko Tsutsumi (2LDK, FORBIDDEN SIREN) deconstructs sensitive themes such as women's traditional roles in society while also fully delivering on the promise of alien creepazoids.

Tsukiko lives a mundane existence revolving around her inscrutable tech office job. One day while on her way to work, she closes her eyes and a mysterious giant egg appears in what’d otherwise be the darkness of her eyelids. The egg soon hatches, unleashing with it memories of suppressed trauma as a hideous arthropod monster develops a tormented relationship with Tsukiko each time she dares to shut out the light.

In Japanese with English subtitles.

“Part of the fun of watching EGG is realizing along with Tsukiko what’s unfolding, and at barely an hour it’s worth your while to go in blind.” Danielle Burgos, Screen Slate

25th anniversary screening of one of the more haunting movies of the 21st century. With the composers of the film's score, local experimental music legends Climax Golden Twins, scheduled to join for a live intro and Q&A!

It looms up out of the woods like a dormant beast. Grand, imposing… abandoned and deteriorating, the Danvers State Mental Hospital, closed down for 15 years, is about to receive 5 new visitors. Donning protective gear, the men of the Hazmat Elimination Co. venture into the eerily vast and vacant asylum that is filled with an evil and mysterious past. Rampant patient abuse, medieval medical procedures, and rumors of demonic possession are some of the many dark secrets the hospital holds – but then, so do each of the men.

“A deft exercise in atmospheric horror and insanity.” Paul Malcolm, L.A. Weekly

“So effective that its sense of uncertainty lingers long after the theater lights have gone up.” Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

One of legendary filmmaker Hisayasu Satô’s most celebrated and visually stunning works, newly restored!

Housewife Kyoko (Kiyomi Ito) begins moonlighting at a mysterious sex club as a means of rebelling against her boring salaryman husband Akihito (Mineo Sugiura). The Bedroom isn’t like any normal sex club, though: the female hostesses all take the powerful sedative Halcion to sleep through their perverse encounters with the male clientele, waking up at the end of their shifts with no memory of what’s been done to them. But when Kyoko decides to explore her fetish for voyeurism by not taking the drug, the lines between fantasy and reality quickly become increasingly blurred—and dangerous.

In Japanese with English subtitles.

“An Aria on Gazes is a fascinating study on alienation and how technology has accelerated that process. Besides still being firmly rooted within the areas of pink film and exploitation, the design of each scene, the lighting and the overall aesthetics create an unforgettable experience, arousing while still disturbing at the same time.” Rouven Linnarz, Asian Movie Pulse

Annual William Kennedy Memorial Screening of the David Cronenberg classic!

When Max Renn goes looking for edgy new shows for his sleazy cable TV station, he stumbles across the pirate broadcast of a hyperviolent torture show called Videodrome. As he struggles to unearth the origins of the program, he embarks on a hallucinatory journey into a shadow world of right-wing conspiracies, sadomasochistic sex games, and bodily transformation. Starring James Woods and Debbie Harry, with groundbreaking special effects makeup by Rick Baker, VIDEODROME is one of David Cronenberg’s most original and provocative works, fusing social commentary with shocking elements of sex and violence.

Back in June 2021, Seattle lost one of its most dedicated cinephiles, William Kennedy. One of Bill’s final wishes was that people gather to watch VIDEODROME in his memory. A portion of the proceeds from this screening will be donated to Evergreen Playhouse in Centralia, where Bill performed in several productions prior to moving to Seattle.

“Videodrome has lost none of its power to disturb, none of its potency as a catalyst for meaningful introspection… It remains the rare breed of sociological provocation that might change minds. It’s a looking glass. It’s a masterpiece.” Walter Chaw, RogerEbert.com

Producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur elevated the horror film to new heights of poetic abstraction with this entrancing journey into the realm between life and death.

When she takes a job caring for a comatose woman on a Caribbean island, a young nurse (Frances Dee) finds herself plunged into a mysterious world where the ghosts of slavery haunt the present and Vodou priests have the power to summon the living dead. Sugarcane swaying in a moonlit field, the hypnotic beat of ceremonial drums, the relentless pull toward death—the otherworldly atmosphere of this bold reimagining of Jane Eyre is as close as studio-era Hollywood ever came to pure dream-state surrealism.

“It transcends the conventions of the horror genre and remains one of Lewton-Tourneur’s most compelling studies in light and darkness.” Don Druker, Chicago Reader

“It is Tourneur’s caressingly evocative direction, superbly backed by Roy Hunt’s chiaroscuro images, that makes sheer magic of the film’s brooding journey into fear.” Tom Milne, Time Out

Supplemental screening opportunity: See Tourneur’s classic and then stay to see it discussed in Maya Annik Bedward’s new documentary BLACK ZOMBIE.

From the flickering screens of Hollywood horror to the haunted cane fields of colonial Haiti, BLACK ZOMBIE unearths the buried origins of the zombie, reclaiming it as a symbol of survival and spiritual resistance.

Long before it became associated with flesh-eating ghouls, the zombie was a living metaphor for slavery: not a monster, but the ultimate victim of colonial power. A symbol of stolen agency was recast as an object of fear, while Black spiritual traditions were distorted, sensationalized, and erased.

Director Maya Annik Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie, reconsidering iconic films like I Walked with a Zombie, Night of the Living Dead, White Zombie, and The Serpent and the Rainbow, alongside archival footage, vérité scenes, and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends including Yves-Grégory Francois, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown. Part cultural reckoning, part horror remix, BLACK ZOMBIE exposes how a figure born from enslavement, spiritual belief, and resistance was transformed into one of pop culture’s most profitable monsters.

Critic’s Pick! “The gangs of the undead are all here to reflect an often ignored and complicated genealogy: from the entranced white woman in Victor Halperin’s White Zombie to the multiracial mob of flesh-eaters in George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead to the frenzied hordes in World War Z and beyond.” Lisa Kennedy, The New York Times

“An intellectual pleasure. Maya Annik Bedward artfully threads the needle between Caribbean spiritual practices and what we’ve seen on screen. A smart, nuanced love letter to Haiti, and a delight for cinephiles.” Caroline Colvin, Dread Central

“Black Zombie demands you reconsider both the horrors humans are capable of and the untold beauty of the living and the dead. It’s the rare documentary you want everyone you know to watch.” Jessi Cape, Austin Chronicle

We invite you once again to make the theater your living room for another trip back in time to the heyday of made-for-TV horror movies.

For this year's triple feature pizza party, we're broadcasting three more chilling tales straight from 1960s, 70s, and 80s network TV, when original horror movies haunted home television screens on a regular basis. The evening's program consists of another trio of lesser-known gems, this time featuring creepy phone calls, stalkers, highway horror, and mysterious items of the occult. As always, the titles are secret, so you won't find out what frightening fables are in store for you until airtime.

Regular concessions will be available for purchase at the beginning of the transmission and throughout the night. The main course will arrive following the first feature. And in addition to satiating the more carnivorous appetites, we’ll have options for our vegetarian and vegan friends too. Plus, during intermissions, you’ll be treated to period-specific Halloween commercials to complete the experience.

The beloved cult classic fantasy, recently restored!

A traveling tax collector (Leslie Cheung) short on funds opts to take shelter in a seemingly abandoned temple. He is surprised to discover a young woman (Joey Wang) there and instantly falls for her beauty and grace. While every romance has its challenges, the tax collector gets more than he bargained for when he learns that the maiden is, in fact, a ghost... forced into servitude by a demon. With the help of a brave warrior, the tax collector must brave the perils of a supernatural world in order to free his newfound love.

In Cantonese with English subtitles.

Special live intro from local Hong Kong genre film connoisseur and one of the programmers of the Seattle Film Society, Patrick McFarland.

“…hard to top for stylistic boldness, vivid pictorialism, and dramatic power.” Ted Shen, Chicago Reader

“Blending every genre under the sun into a film that feels like a permanent sugar rush, this action horror classic was perfecting wire-fu long before Western audiences knew what it was.” Justin Bowyer, Empire

The Sprocket Society presents: a yacht blithely strays into cut-throat terror in this legendary pre-Code thriller, shown with spooky shorts — all on 16mm film!

A secret island owned by a rich, calculating psychopath with unholy kinks. An innocent man and woman thrown together by pure chance, stranded by “accident,” far beyond the help of any caring soul. Frayed wits and a woodsman’s knife pitted against the rich man’s cunning, his arsenal, and his pack of ravening hounds. Ah, the manhunt is on! The bloodlust…so sweet. So perfectly crafted. So inconsequential.

Joel McRae, Fay Wray, and a gloriously villainous Leslie Banks star in a tightly wound thriller that’s as short and hard-hitting as a crossbow bolt.

A low budget studio throw-away, 94 years later it’s been copied countless times yet never bested. Co-helmed by the director of King Kong and shot on the same jungle sets, the tension and fog-choked visuals linger long after the credits roll.

All aboard: your berth awaits!

Presented with selected short subjects.

“The filmmakers deliver terrific set pieces and exotic atmosphere, resulting in one of the most lavish and best-looking B-movies ever made, with wonderfully lurid pre-Code flourishes: gruesome violence, sadism, and sexual perversity.” Sean Axmaker, Video Librarian

“There isn’t an ounce of fat and no line is thrown away. Films like this really aren’t made anymore, and it’s a breath of fresh air, even after 90 years.” Dan Roberts, We Are Cult

Tickets on sale soon!

The first feature film wholly produced by Vinegar Syndrome Pictures, directed by Kurtis M. Spieler (Re-Director of New York Ninja).

A group of friends in a punk rock band discover a hidden cemetery in the woods, where they accidentally raise a horde of undead friars. Shot entirely on 16mm film, NIGHT OF THE VAMP-FRIARS is a loving tribute to the homegrown horror films made during the height of the video store era.