PREVIEW: Hudson Horror Show gets ready for ‘December to Dismember’ event
The Hudson Horror Show is quickly turning into a must-see festival for genre fans. The biannual event is held at Silver Cinemas in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and this December’s marathon promises to be gut-wrenchingly enjoyable (literally).
For a mere $26, fans will get the chance to enjoy 35mm prints of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, Silent Night Deadly Night, The Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman, Rolling Thunder and a sixth mystery feature.
The Saturday, Dec. 3 festival, which will mark the fourth installment of the successful series, starts at noon and continues to midnight. Advanced tickets are available now at www.hudsonhorror.com.
Recently, Hollywood Soapbox traded e-mails with festival coordinator Christopher Alo.
How did you come up with the idea for the Hudson Horror Show in the first place?
I have to give credit to Exhumed Films of Philadelphia for being the main inspiration for myself for Hudson Horror Show. They are a repertory horror film group based out of Philly. I went to one of thier shows years ago and it literally changed my life.
They screen classic horror films and trailers, all off 35mm prints and they put on the best shows on earth. It was so much fun to sit there and watch these classic movies with a like-minded audience. I just had to do it again and again.
After attending quite a few of the Exhumed shows, as well as many other repertory horror screenings literally around the country, my girlfriend Denise suggested, why don’t I try to program such a show?
I immediately talked with my friend, Tad Leger, who is another lifetime horror fan like myself.
Tad is a graphics designer who had been doing work for Grindhouse Releasing (Sage Stallone and Bob Murawski’s film distribution company). Grindhouse had done an amazing job of re-releasing movies like The Beyond and Cannibal Holocaust in theaters again, and they were preparing to re-release the original Evil Dead in theaters.
The guys from Grindhouse were gracious enough to let us run thier re-release print of Evil Dead (along with a few other films) and so Hudson Horror Show was born. If it wasn’t for Grindhouse Releasing, we wouldn’t be able to do these shows.
Have you found success? How have the crowds been?
Thankfully all three of our previous festivals have been successful, which is why we keep coming back for more. As long as people keep coming to our shows, we’ll keep doing them.
The crowds have been wonderful. It’s a very varied mix of “old folks” like myself and Tad (we are both over 40) to fairly young teenagers. The audience is also very well behaved too, which we encourage. There’s nothing worse than going to see a movie with someone yelling at the screen.
How do you choose what films to play?
Picking the movies is fairly difficult. Three things weigh on those decisions.
Tad and myself (along with our crew of friends that help us out) try and figure out what movies do we think the audience would want to see. We ask people at events, we tell people to send us requests on our web site and Facebook, etc.
The second factor is, without being too selfish, what movies would we like to see? I know Tad and I would love to do an all-day festival of Spanish horror films or 70’s Italian giallo’s, but that might not be too popular!
The biggest factor is, what movies are available on 35mm film? There is a whole network of film distributors and collectors out there, but even so, there are just some movies that are impossible to get.
For this December’s Horror Show, what are you most excited for?
As a fan of this stuff myself, there are three movies we are running that I have never seen projected off film. I’ve never seen Rolling Thunder, The Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman or the secret movie, so I’m really looking forward to all three of them.
I think I’m probably most looking forward to the secret movie!
Do you have an all-time favorite horror movie? Why?
My all-time favorite horror film would probably be George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. To me, it’s just the single greatest zombie movie of all time. It’s got everything. Action, comedy, horror, great special effects, an amazing score, a perfect script, and most of all, characters that you really feel for.
I love that you focus on 35mm. Why?
Well, the shows that blew me away were the shows by Exhumed Films and they were all off 35mm film. I knew when I wanted to do shows, I wanted to do it like them. But also, I’m a big collector of vintage toys, movie posters, etc. so I’m all about nostalgia.
I want to watch these movies exactly the way they were originally presented in the 70’s and 80’s, and doing that off 35mm film is the only way to do that. When Tad and I decided we wanted to do this, we knew that was the only way to go.
Besides, nowadays everyone has blu-ray players, big plasma TVs, HD projectors, etc. Who would want to pay money to go see a DVD at a movie theater? Not me!
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com-
Click here for more information on the Hudson Horror Show.
