BRATTLEBORO-This October in Brattleboro, Epsilon Spires transforms its Victorian gothic church into what organizers call the "Haunted Home of Halloween," as throughout the month, they present a thrilling lineup of classic and cult scary movies with live music performances in a series called The Apocalypse Will Be Televised.
Featured will be performers paired with horror films about the power of media. The films depict how too much screen time can prove deadly. There will be themed drinks and tricks-and-treats galore.
Epsilon's monthly series of Silent Film with Live Music continues Sunday, Oct. 13, with Vampyr (1932), accompanied by cellist Lori Goldston. Carl Dreyer's Vampyr is a dreamlike tale of a small French village struggling with malevolent forces, "a truly uncanny presentation of the supernatural that has gone on to inspire generations of filmmakers since," say organizers. Many consider it a cornerstone of the horror genre.
Known for her work with Nirvana on their 1994 MTV Unplugged live album, Goldston is a cellist, composer, improviser, producer, writer, and teacher from Seattle whose work "drifts freely across borders that separate genre, discipline, time, and geography," according to her website.
The Apocalypse Will Be Televised festival opened on Oct. 7 with the 1982 film Poltergeist. On Saturday, Oct. 26, it will continue with the screening of the 1998 Japanese horror movie that swept the U.S., Ringu (The Ring). Before the film, local shredder Graham Brooks, of metal bands Barishi, Witch, and Ordh, will perform a set on acoustic guitar.
This film launched the J-horror boom in the West and inspired a slew of remakes and imitations, "but none compare to director Hideo Nakata's original masterpiece, which melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of technology," say organizers in a news release.
On Halloween, Thursday, Oct. 31, Epsilon Spires will present the final installment of the festival: the 1992 film, Ghostwatch, featuring U.K.-based Bordello Collective. "This is a rare opportunity for a U.S. audience to experience the English cult classic film that nearly shut down the BBC." Participants sporting costumes that night will be eligible to win a prize.
Stephen Volk and Lesley Manning's Ghostwatch is described as "an extraordinary, groundbreaking social experiment" that was originally presented on the BBC appearing as an on-air Halloween television special in 1992. It professed to be a live paranormal investigation of "the most haunted house in Britain" and was so disturbing that, after its broadcast, the BBC was flooded with many thousands of phone calls - the film was banned for 10 years, and the BBC never showed it again.
Guiding the audience through this paranormal journey are the artists Vision 25-C and Dyad of Bordello Collective, a queer performance group. Vision 25-C will present a newly composed sound piece inspired by Ghostwatch and its experimentation with form, genre, and atmosphere, and artist Dyad will introduce the film. "Both artists are delighted to share the U.K. cultural phenomenon that is Ghostwatch with an American audience 32 years to the day after its broadcast on the spookiest night of the year."
For further details about these events, visit epsilonspires.org.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.