Friday Night Weird: October 2024

For most of us, Halloween means letting go of the bubblegum sensibilities of summer and embracing the darkness that comes with the season of creeping death. But for Shay Wescott, the Dairy Arts Center’s “queen of weird,” it’s just another month of programming the most bizarre movies she can find.

“Horror films are so fundamental to Friday Night Weird,” she says of the nonprofit’s weekly underground cinema show. “It’s not something I’m waiting for all year long, like, ‘What are we going to do in October?’ It actually happens organically.”

You’ll find no shortage of schlocky Halloween fare at the movies this season, but the disturbing selections of this long-running, homey showcase at the Boedecker Theater offer much more than jump scares and would-be scream queens.

“I’m not looking to cover mainstream horror films, but I’m not necessarily going to go out of my way to go to a niche arthouse cinema for that kind of thing,” says Wescott. “We are looking for films that may be less accessible and that we want to draw attention to and take to a higher level. They don’t always fall into the perfect ‘Halloween’ category.”

Azrael
Friday October 4
EL Katz, 2024, Estonia and USA, 1:25, R

Wescott has difficulty with the term ‘scream queen’. She sees a dark undercurrent lurking beneath the name that film critics (mostly men) have adopted to describe the ’80s ladies who anchored the stomach-churning slasher films of the era.

“The screaming generally involved a lot of sexual violence – a lot of exploitation,” she explains. “I’ve met so many of these actresses, and they are incredible people who have had amazing careers. I don’t want to take anything away from that, but it was more about what was there in terms of roles for women.

That’s why Wescott is particularly enthusiastic Azraelstarring Australian horror standout Samara Weaving. Director EL Katz’s action-packed film follows a group of religious fanatics left behind after the shooting as they hunt for a young woman who has escaped slavery in a silent world where no one speaks.

“It’s really about empowering her and making her look like a badass,” she says. “It’s also a setup where she can’t scream. You won’t hear any shouting.”

The birthday
Friday October 11
Eugenio Mira, 2004, Spain, 1:40, NR

Corey Feldman has had a rough go of it since his career as an ’80s teen heartthrob. The actor’s public image grew into an overgrown bad boy punch around the turn of the century, but if you spend a few minutes on his Wikipedia page , you see a familiar constellation of abuses that plague too many child performers.

So there is a certain triumph in his leading role The birthdaya cult favorite in which an unhappy boyfriend discovers an ‘ancient evil’ that could well mean the end of the world. After decades of underground buzz, the film is finally getting a proper theatrical release after Jordan Peele programmed it at the Film Society of Lincoln Center last year for its second-ever U.S. screening.

“I think the world owes (Feldman) a huge apology and an endless source of empathy,” Wescott said. “I’m really excited about the fact that this doesn’t make fun of him in any way. Everything about this comes from a genuine place of love and appreciation in a way that cult films aren’t normally treated – so it feels special.

Ganja & Hess
Friday October 18
Bill Gunn, 1973, USA, 1:52, R

Immortality is a blessing and a curse. Just ask anthropologist Hess Green (Duane Jones), who develops a taste for blood after being shone through a ceremonial dagger. This is the turn of events that heralds the unholy marriage of Blaxploitation and horror, Bill Gunn’s paradigm-shifting indie vampire film. Ganja & Hess.

“It elevated Gunn to the status of ‘the black Stanley Kubrick’ in some circles, but was otherwise completely ignored in the US due to racism and the incredibly vanilla taste of most American filmgoers,” says Wescott.

Purchased, stripped for parts and re-cut by a low-budget grindhouse distributor after release, Ganja & Hess – later adapted by Spike Lee as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus in 2014 – spent years in the choppy waters of critical opinion before cementing his status as a cult horror kingpin and cornerstone of black cinema.

“There are times when the white critic must sit down and listen,” Gunn wrote in a 1973 open letter to the New York Times after the film’s icy reception. “If he can’t listen and learn, he shouldn’t be involved in black creativity.”

The fabric
Friday October 25
Coralie Fargeat, 2024, USA, 2:20, R

Growing older has never been as scary as in this sensational film by French director and screenwriter Coralie Fargeat. The fabric follows ‘beyond her prime’ actress (Demi Moore) who turns to a panacea for young people after being fired by a disgusting studio executive (Dennis Quaid). The catch? She has to spend as much time in her own body as she does in that of her twenty-something counterpart (Margaret Qualley).

That may not sound like a big deal, but if you haven’t yet caught on to the discourse surrounding this body horror conversation piece, Wescott says viewers will get more than they bargained for as Fargeat’s unforgettable film unfolds.

“The fabric is already one of the most talked-about films of the year, depicting one of our favorite pastimes: taking apart the bodies of aging women who literally dare to put themselves on film,” she says. “When you go in, you know it’s absolutely as grotesque as anyone will tell you. What I didn’t expect is that it would be so magical and so funny.”