It's more of a "sit in" because we host in our backyard. Tonight, we're watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and risking a wrist slapping from the copyright police (since we have no permission to display the movie to the "public"*--shhhhh).
If you want to host a drive-in, you'd be safer (and more legal) showing some of these horror goodies from the public domain vault (at least I think these are all in the public domain). All text is from
IMDB.
You can also stumble over to
www.horrortheque.com for a whole browser window full of free horror goodies. Tis the season!
10. Dementia 13 1963, Francis Ford Coppolla
John Haloran has a fatal heart attack, but his wife Louise won’t get
any of the inheritance when Lady Haloran dies if John is dead. Louise
forges a letter from John to convince the rest of his family he’s been
called to New York on important business, and goes to his Irish
ancestral home,
Castle Haloran, to meet the family and look for a way to ensure a cut
of the loot. Seven years earlier John’s sister Kathleen was drowned in
the pond, and the Halorans enact a morbid ritual in remembrance. Secrets
shroud the sister’s demise, and soon the family and guests begin
experiencing an attrition problem.
9. Phantom of the Opera 1925, Rupert Julian
At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric
singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in
Faust) for unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this phantom (a
masked man) in the catacombs, where he lives. What’s his goal? What’s
his secret?
8. The Last Man on Earth 1964, Ubaldo Ragona
Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only survivor of a
devastating world-wide plague due to a mysterious immunity he acquired
to the bacterium while working in Central America years ago. He is all
alone now…or so it seems. As night falls, plague victims begin to leave
their graves, part of a hellish undead army that’s thirsting for
blood…his!
7. The House on Haunted Hill 1959, William Castle
Millionaire playboy Fredrick Loren hosts a party
for his 4th wife Annabelle Loren at the “House On Haunted Hill,” a
house that has seen seven murders, Fredrick invites 5 guests: Lance
Schroeder,a pilot, Ruth Bridges, a journalist, Watson Prichard, the
owner of The House On Haunted Hill, Nora Manning, a worker for one of
Fredrick Loren’s companies, and David Trent, a psychiatrist. Fredrick
will offer each of them $10,000 to spend a night in The House On Haunted
Hill. They all want the money. At midnight, the caretakers lock to
doors, and the terror begins!
6. Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde 1920, John Robertson
Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Henry Jekyll
believes that there are two distinct sides to men – a good and an evil
side. He believes that by separating the two men can become liberated.
He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and
transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes.
5. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari 1919, Robert Wiene
A horror film that surpasses all others. Alan relates the story of
traveling magician Dr Caligari and Cesare. Their arrival in a town
coincides with savage killings. Secretly Caligari was an asylum director
who hypnotizes Cesare to re enact murders. But the final reel contains
something, which will leave an audience shattered. It blows away all
your moral certainties and beliefs. This is the true power of its
horror. To leave you vulnerable and uncertain of what you feel was
secure and certain.
4. The Most Dangerous Game 1932, Irving Pichel & Ernest B. Schoedsack
An insane hunter arranges for a ship to be wrecked on an island where he
can indulge in some sort of hunting and killing of the passengers.
3. Nosferatu 1922, F Murnau
An unauthorized production of Bram Stoker’s work (The legal heirs
didn’t give their permission), so the names had to be changed. But this
wasn’t enough: The widow of Bram Stoker won two lawsuits (1924 and 1929)
in which she demanded the destruction of all copies of the movie,
however happily copies of it were already too widespread to destroy them
all. Later, the Universal studios could break her resistance against
this movie. Count Orlok’s move to Wisburg (Obviously the real “Wismar”)
brings the plague traceable to his dealings with the Realtor Thomas Hutter, and the Count’s obsession with Hutter’s wife, Ellen the only one with the power to end the evil.
2. Night of the Living Dead 1968, George Romero
The dead come back to life and eat
the living in this low budget, black and white film. Several people
barricade themselves inside a rural house in an attempt to survive the
night. Outside are hordes of relentless, shambling zombies who can only
be killed by a blow to the head.
1. M 1931, Fritz Lang
A psychotic child murderer stalks a city, and despite an exhaustive
investigation fueled by public hysteria and outcry, the police have been
unable to find him. But the police crackdown does have one side-affect,
it makes it nearly impossible for the organized criminal underground to
operate. So they decide that the only way to get the police off their
backs is to catch the murderer themselves. Besides, he is giving them a
bad name.
*The
public being our family and a few friends.
