TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME
7:00 p.m.(NOTE EARLY START TIME!)
(US, R, 1992, 135 min)
Alternately fascinating and frustrating--and no doubt deliberately so on both counts--this controversial Twin Peaks installment (it was roundly booed by mystified audiences at the Cannes Film Festival) appeared in theaters after the series was cancelled, serving as both prequel and coda to the whole remarkable Twin Peaks phenomenon. Designed especially for dedicated followers of the series (it would just bewilder anyone else), Fire Walk With Me further investigates the murder of Laura Palmer by exploring events that took place before the series' brilliant debut feature ("Twin Peaks: The Premiere"), up to and including the long, dark, terrible night of Laura's death. Familiar Twin Peaks denizens Sheryl Lee, Grace Zabriskie and Ray Wise (as the three members of the Palmer family), Kyle MacLachlan, Peggy Lipton, James Marshall, Dana Ashbrook, Miguel Ferrer, Madchen Amick and director David Lynch himself reprise their series roles (with Moira Kelly subbing for Lara Flynn Boyle as Donna Hayward), joined by an equally motley group of guest stars, including Harry Dean Stanton, David Bowie, Chris Isaak and Kiefer Sutherland.

AND

TOURIST TRAP
9:30 p.m.
(US, R, 1979, 89 min)
Tourist Trap is a genuinely strange film. Nobody knew how to pigeonhole it upon its release. There was an attempt to sell it as part of the slasher cycle created by Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980), although it didn't really belong there. Four people (including Tanya Roberts) find themselves stranded by car trouble and are forced to find assistance. What they find is Slausen's Lost Oasis (a wax museum in the desert) and a seemingly abandoned mansion owned by gentle old Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors). Hidden within the home is Mr. Slausen's misunderstood younger brother. The story provides just enough plot to hang the premise on. And the premise is just as simple, but it's a fairly universal one for anyone who's ever walked through a department store: mannequins are really, really freaky. The result is a one-of-a-kind horror film which wonderfully exploits the fear potential of wax dummies and mannequins. Plus, it's got a score by Pino Dannagio!

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS
7:30 p.m.
(US, R, 1987, 96 min)
Often described as the best of the Elm Street sequels, Kristen (Patricia Arquette) is placed in a hospital psychiatric ward with six other troubled teens, who all dream about the same horrible Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) trying to kill them. The third Nightmare continues Freddy's story with the sole survivor of the first movie, Nancy Thompson. Nancy has just accepted a position as a research scientist at a psychiatric institution near the fated house on Elm Street. She discovers that Kristen has a special gift which may help them destroy Freddy forever. Starring Heather Langenkamp and Craig Wasson.

AND

SILENT SCREAM
9:30 p.m.
(US, R, 1980, 87 min)
After missing-out on late enrolment, four college students find themselves renting rooms in an old seaside mansion. Before long, the ghostly strains of melancholic 50’s ballads descend through ancient pipes to fill the house with a strange sense of unease. And somewhere, deep within the cobwebbed recesses of the house, a butcher’s knife whittles away at plaster board. Yep, it’s that old chestnut: Something lurking in the attic and it wants out! Silent Scream is something of an enigma. Made at the height of the early 80’s slasher craze, it is kind of a throwback to the days of windswept mansions and groaning floorboards. Starring Barbara Steele, Rebecca Balding, Yvonne De Carlo, Cameron Mitchell, and Avery Schreiber.

This is it! The 10th Annual Nevermore Film Festival opens tonight at the Carolina Theatre of Durham, located at 309 West Morgan Street in Downtown Durham! 10-passes are $65 and individual tickets are $8. Tickets are available for all screenings so come on out and bring your friends for an exciting three-day fest.
Click HERE for the complete schedule and all of the film synopses.

We're hosting a special RETROFANTASMA on Friday, FEBRUARY 13th. Proceeds from the screenings benefit the Nevermore Film Festival (February 20-22, 2009)! Please help us support the festival. Mark your calendars! Please note the special start times for each of the films. Tickets are $10 (special benefit price) for all three films this evening.

Plus, there will be a "beer-tasting" held in the Connie Moses Ballroom that same evening from 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m. where you'll be able to sample lots of great beers! More information about the beer tasting is yet to come. The cost for the beer-tasting will be $10 and will be a separate ticket apart from the film screenings. All proceeds from the beer-tasting will also benefit the Nevermore Film Festival.

FILM SCHEDULE

The Original Animated 80s Classic!
TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE
(US, PG, 1986, 84 min)
7:30 p.m.

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
(US, R, 1981, 97 min)
9:15 p.m.

CLASS OF 1984
(Canada, R, 1982, 98 min)
11:00 p.m.
Tickets are $10 and are on sale now at the box office. Call 919.560.3030 or stop by the box office to purchase tickets to the film screenings and the beer tasting!

Hey everyone! We've had a lot of requests for this one...REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA is coming to the CAROLINA THEATRE on 35mm for 4 days only. Monday-Thursday, January 19-22, 2009! Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m. nightly in Cinema One. Advance tickets are available NOW by calling the Carolina Theatre Box Office at 919.560.3030!

4 NIGHTS ONLY - JAN 19 - 22

In the not-so-distant future, an epidemic of organ failures devastates the planet. Out of the tragedy, a savior emerges: GENECO, a biotech company that offers organ transplants…for a price. Those who miss their payments are scheduled for repossession and hunted by villainous ORGAN REPO MEN.

In a future where surgery addicts are hooked on painkilling drugs and murder is sanctioned by law, a sheltered young girl searches for information about her family's mysterious past and the cure to her own rare disease. After being sucked into the haunting world of GeneCo's Genetic Opera she won't turn back until she finds what she's looking for.

REPO! is a genre-bending 21st century industrial-Wagnerian opera featuring what is thought to be the most songs ever composed in a single film. REPO! Is an opera in the truest sense – its story is sung from beginning to end – but as composers Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich like to say: this is not your parents' opera.

REPO! Official Site

January 16  - RETROFANTASMA

THE THING at 7:30 p.m.
(US, R, 1982, 109 min.)
Directed by John Carpenter

Director John Carpenter and special makeup effects master Rob Bottin teamed up for this 1982 remake of the 1951 science fiction classic The Thing From Another World, and the result is a modern-day masterpiece.  It's got moments of highly effective terror and spine-tingling suspense, but it's also a showcase for some of the goriest and most horrifically grotesque makeup effects ever created for a movie. With such highlights as a dog that splits open and blossoms into something indescribably gruesome, this is the kind of movie for die-hard horror fans.  It all begins when scientists at an arctic research station discover an alien spacecraft under the thick ice and thaw out the alien body found aboard.  What they don't know is that the alien can assume any human form, and before long, the scientists can't tell who's real and who's a deadly alien threat. Kurt Russell leads the battle against the terrifying intruder, and the supporting cast includes Richard Masur, Richard Dysart, Donald Moffat and Wilford Brimley.  If you've got the stomach for it (and let's face it, there's a big audience for eerie gore), this is a thrill ride you won't want to miss.

"Man is the warmest place to hide."

AND

THE VISITOR
(US, R, 1979, 101 min.)

Along with Pieces, this is a film that RETRO fans have been begging us to screen again for years! And believe us, this IS the epitome of alien invasion-demonic tyke-Second Coming flicks.  The plot goes something more or less like this:  Satan, that intergalactic dictator, has succeeded in fathering a child on Earth to Barbara Collins, a genetically perfect woman.  The resulting ten-year-old girl, Katie, has amazing powers.  Satan's board of directors on Earth explain to Barbara's lover that he must marry her and father a similar boy.  But when Barbara refuses him, Satan's minions arrange that she be abducted by a UFO and artificially inseminated.  (And whoa, folks!) The results are bizarrely incoherent to say the least.  What makes the film halfway watchable is its often WTF moments: Glenn Ford gets attacked by an overgrown clay pigeon; John Huston, who presides over an intergalactic group of bald-headed children, spends the film on top of a building amid flashing blue landing lights; Linda Blair-like Paige Connors spends the film wearing over-sized sunglasses and, when she removes them, reveals gleaming metallic eyes underneath - and, in the opening few minutes, psychically blows up the ball at a basketball game.  Much psuedo-mystical twaddle is bandied about: absolutely nothing makes sense.  This it the type of film that begs to be seen during a beer special!    

 "They know we are here..."

Cinema One
Tickets $7 for both films!   

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
(Dir. Tomas Alfredson, Sweden, 2008, R, 114 min)
Weekend Matinees at 2:10 & 4:35Nightly at 7:10 & 9:35 (No 9:35 Screening on Friday 12/5)

Let the Right One In is a dark, original and hauntingly beautiful story of young love set in the snowy suburbs of 1980s Stockholm. It won the top award for best narrative feature at this year's Tribeca Film Festival and was a huge audience favorite when we screened the NC premiere at the Escapism Film Festival in October.

Don't look for the blood of 30 Days of Night, or even Gothic tombs, but trust us, if you love great drama and vampires, you need to see this film. The movie is based on a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist of the same title (which apparently he lifted from a Morrissey song).

Let the Right One In tells the story of Oskar, a pale 12-year-old boy, who's bullied by his classmates. One night, he meets his new neighbor, Eli, in the snow-covered playground outside his apartment block. Eli only comes out at night. As they bond over a Rubik's cube, it becomes clear that these two lonely kids are the perfet soul mates, and the fact that she's a vampire hardly fazes Oskar at all. Of course, the rest of the world is not quite so understanding. Since Eli moved into the are, there have ben a series of killings and the neighbors are getting suspicious. Let the Righ One In is that rare instance in modern horror: a film with a heart and soul that manages to be touching, magical, thought-provoking and creepy all at the same time.

In Swedish w/Eng. subtitles

Viewer's Guide: Violence, gore, language and brief graphic nudity.

Cinema Two

Hey everyone!It's been great to read all the posts these past few days. As always, RETRO is a pleasure to program, and its fans are the best fans in the world.Just thought I'd add a quick mention about TWO (2) new items that will debut this coming Friday at our 10th Anniversary Celebration: 1) AN ALL NEW RETRO RING! (This is the montage clips-reel that opens every show, cut to Me First & The Gimmee Gimmee's "Science Fiction Double Feature.") We are debuting a NEW ring; it's still cut to "Science Fiction Double Feature" but will include 99% new clips! I think there are something like 70+ bits of film in this 2.15 minute montage. (Yes, we kept the "Go, Flash, Go!" scene from FLASH GORDON; and Hal Holbrook getting his noggin chopped off by Captain Blake in THE FOG, but other than that, I'm fairly certain the rest of the ring will be all-new!) It's our goal to introduce a new RETRO RING each year. 2) A SPECIAL 10-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE MONTAGE. We've been working to splice together a great video clips-reel that includes many of the films we've screened at RETRO during the past decade. This will be a special treat to our fans. This is a 3.5 minute video montage that will include 35+ film clips (out of the 120 unique films we've screened) that you've either seen or missed at RETRO since 1998. The montage will also list the name of the film and the date on which it screened at RETROFANTASMA. PLUS there will be a special GRAND PRIZE for one lucky fan! (Hint: You're gonna hafta know your movie music scores.)Okay, do we really need to mention that our 10th Anniversary Celebration will have some of the biggest and best door prizes of all time? And GRINDHOUSE RELEASING has sent us a whole slew of special 35mm trailers to place on the front of THE BEYOND. You've never seen any of these trailers at a previous RETRO! There are some genuine grindhouse classics in this bunch.And as always, Matt has put together his own great trailer package for THE BURNING. COME EARLY TO SIGN-UP FOR DOOR PRIZES! THIS IS GONNA BE A GREAT EVENING! WE HIGHLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO START ARRIVING EARLY! WITH SO MUCH GOING ON, WE HOPE TO START PRETTY MUCH ON TIME AT 7:30 p.m....(we know, we know. We are dreamers.)