It’s happening again! The Globe Cinema will once again be hosting the annual CUFF 12-Hour Halloween Marathon at 7 p.m. sharp on Saturday, Oct. 30 (doors open at 6 p.m). As usual, they interrupt the madness at midnight for a costume contest (dress up as a C.H.U.D.!), there’s prizes and giveaways, and you can leave early if you want to (12 hours is a long time).
This year’s lineup of films seems fascinatingly random. Here’s what’s on offer:
SCREAM (1996) at 7 p.m.
Hey, did you know that they’re making a fifth Scream movie? Yeah, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette are all coming back, so it’s a sequel … but they’re not calling it a sequel. The posters make it look like a reboot. And they’re calling it …Scream. Just … just the same title again. Not Scream 5 or Scream Again, just Scream. So, uh … that’s annoying. Anyway, forget all that, because this movie is the 1996 original.
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)
Legendary director John Carpenter made this Lovecraftian oddity after Memoirs of An Invisible Man (1992), but before Village of the Damned (1995), so audiences were still super into him, but were juuuuuuust starting to wonder if his movies were beginning to get bad. But a cult audience embraced the thing almost immediately, and they still get a thrill at the thought of seeing it on a big screen again.
CRITTERS 2 (1988)
Ohmygod … here’s the one I wanna see!! The original Critters (1986) not only had crazy little hairballs from space, it also had two shape-changing alien bounty hunters, who turn up in the Critter-infested town and laser-blast a church while looking for the dang varmints. Meanwhile, the local hicks try to fight off the swarm of piranha-Tribbles with shotguns and homemade fireworks. It was no masterpiece, but I watched it twice in a theatre, and loved every minute. Somehow I never got around to seeing Critters 2 (my usual attitude is “sequels suck”), but I remember hearing outlandish stories of a bounty hunter turning into a sexy lady with a staple in her (the alien modelled his new human disguise after a centrefold) and a scene in which all of the toothy little furbeasts Voltron themselves into a giant giggling ball of hair and fangs.
WINTERBEAST (1992)
A genuine obscurity with ludicrous stop-motion animated creature effects. Apparently, they filmed two scenes way back in 1986, then stopped, then started again in 1989 (by which time most of the cast and crew had forgotten they were making a movie), and just filmed the remaining footage in two days. I admit to being morbidly curious.
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)
Here’s a Friday the 13th movie. (Ed note: With Corey Feldman!)
PIRANHA (1978)
A hidden gem! Yes, they were ripping off Jaws (a popular practice that continues to this day), but have you seen it? It’s good! Directed by Joe Dante, written by John Sayles, and with lots of beloved cult-movie heavyweights in the cast (Dick Miller! Barbara Steele! Paul Bartel!), this one’s an unexpected treat.
DON’T PANIC (1988)
It’s the last film of the night/morning, and it’s a … film I’ve never heard of! Which means that there’s a pretty good chance that you haven’t heard of it, either! So let’s both get surprised by whatever the hell this is! Happy Halloween, you insomniac lunatics!
The 2021 CUFF Halloween Movie Marathon begins at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 30 at the Globe Cinema (617 8 Ave. S.W.), and continues until 7 a.m. the next morning. Tickets are $20, or $18 for CUFF members, students and seniors. Capacity limits and COVID health precautions will be strictly enforced. Details are available at www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org and on Facebook.
