The annual feat of horror endurance that is Shock Around the Clock! returns to the Drexel Theater this weekend. The 24 hour horror movie marathon runs noon Saturday, Oct 18 to noon Sunday, Oct 19 and boasts premiers, classics, zany trailers and more.
Columbus Underground joined the two headed monster in charge of the event, Bruce Bartoo and Joe Neff, in the projection booth at the Wexner Center for the Arts where Bartoo makes his living. Huddled close to those canisters of Bartoo’s famous trailer collection, we talked horror and emailed filmmakers.
ColumbusUnderground: This is my favorite line up for the marathon so far. It’s very tight, really great.
Joe Neff: Can you include that Joe raises his fists in triumph?
CU: And you have a lot of premiers. Were they hard to come by?
J: We just kind of lucked out, but that happens. The all nighter we did ten years ago, we had Saw. We got it the week before it opened nationally because they didn’t know what to do with it – that would never happen today. It’s a crapshoot, though. Sometimes you take what you can get.
CU: So, have you seen them yet? Do you like them?
J: No. That’s part of the fun.
B: There’s always hell to pay afterwards if it’s terrible.
J:Housebound has gotten good reviews over there (New Zealand). It should be good.
CU: And between Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears and Satanist, you’re getting a little bit sexy this year. Was that intentional?
J: Well, some of the classics we have no longer seem that transgressive, so it’s always about striking that balance. I don’t know if it was safe last year, but safer.
B: We’ve been pushing boundaries for several years with Irreversible, Martyrs, Serbian Film.
CU: Is Tears your provocative title this year?
J: I guess
B: Or Satanist? In lieu of shocking and/or disgusting, sexy is good.
J: In the last couple years we didn’t have anything that pushed things. I think we like to give the audience something like that to hold on to.
CU: It happens that the classics you lined up for this year are maybe the best ones you could possibly have – Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Shining. People often show The Shining about this time of year, and they use a DVD or BluRay, but I have faith that you have something more glorious than that.
J: Oh, yeah. It’s DCP. I got the chance to see it last year, it’s gorgeous.
CU: What made you choose The Manitou? It is the most ridiculous movie of all time.
J: I think the word you used for Manitou was great – ridiculous. A friend of mine had seen it a few years ago and loved it, so I found it and watched it at home and loved it. I said Wow, how have I not seen this? And we’re hoping the audience digs it, too, because it’s not a bad film. I think it’s very entertaining, but it’s so strange, and for a major studio film like that, you’d never see something like that today.
B: And for Joe and I – we can see a film and enjoy it on that level, but we’re also thinking, Oh, this is going to play great with the crowd.
CU: One of the three premiers is Mike Olenick’s short Red Luck. Who is Mike Olenick?
B: He’s a local filmmaker par excellence.
J: Mike has done a lot of short films and about a year ago he told us he was finishing this horror short and asked if we wanted to have its Ohio premier.
Mike Olenick (via email): I’ve been making films for about 15 years and I’ve been at the Wex for nearly 12 years, where I work as an editor in the Film/Video Studio.
Red Luck was inspired by a dream. One of the things I wanted to do with this film was to translate qualities that appear in my dreams onto the screen. They are often full of very vivid details and I tried to fill the film with lots of memorable fragments: a hand tapping on a blue plaid couch, a mustache and glasses hidden behind the edge of a Polaroid, close up of text on a record sleeve, a pill being crushed, the shadow of a drill going across someone’s body. I also wanted every frame of the film to look gorgeous, even when it is gory. I think the preoccupation with patterns, textures and colors contrasts with the gory moments and gives them extra impact.
CU: Bruce and Joe, what are you most excited to show?
B: Excited? I have a cartoon I’m going to throw in, but I’m not going to mention it.
J: He’s so excited, he won’t even tell me. I’m most excited about Strang Color of Your Body’s Tears, because I haven’t seen it and it is supposed to be the prototypical theater experience.
People ask us why we keep doing this, that you can see it all on BluRay or DVD, and yeah, but you don’t get to see it with a crowd. A film like that – with a big screen and digital surround sound – it’s a wildly different experience.
B: And it’s not just a crowd, it’s this crowd. It’s a unique experience.
Shock Around the Clock! full line up:
- Housebound (2014)
- The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (2013)
- Red Luck (2014)
- The Satanist (1968)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
- Demons (1985)
- Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
- The Invisible Man (1933)
- The Wicker Man (1973)
- The Shining (1980)
- The Manitou (1978)
- You’re Next (2011)
- Tenebre (1982)
Tickets are $40 in advance, $45 at the door. Purchase tickets at the Drexel Theater (2254 E. Main St), Laughing Ogre Comics (8258 N. High St) or via PayPal at www.horrormarathon.com.
A full slate of movie reviews is available on my website www.maddwolf.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @maddwolf and like me on Facebook at facebook.com/MaddWolfColumbus .