On Friday 13, June 2008, myself and a few friends enjoyed a rare treat indeed. We found a poster out and about in the city a few days before that advertised a showing of three films on this spooky date. Those three films were horror films, but not just any old horror films, horror films that changed the cinematic landscape of American and the world cinema. Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street, Sean Cunningham’s Friday 13th and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead where shown one after the other and for a fan it was a sheer joy, sitting there with friends enjoying the sensation of the vintage scares in a dark little room with other fans of the macabre and fantastic. If the bill also included Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and John Carpenter’s Halloween I would have been in heaven.
Cinematrocities was the name of the screening and to my surprise they have been doing it for sometime in Newcastle. Run by The Octopod, a media and art collective in Newcastle, Cinematrocities has been offering an alternative cinema experience in the city for many a happy bloody dripping and scream filled years. Anything of the weird and wonderful variety, everything ever labelled ‘in bad taste’, the strange and oddly unique, the bizarre and dreamscapes flicking away at 24 frame a second have all graced the Cinematrocities screens at one time or another. Films from around the world with bright technicolour and bad dubbing are my favourites and the gorier the better.
With the closer of the Showcase Cinema in Newcastle art house cinema has no real venue left except for the occasional film at the Greater Union Tower Cinemas. People are looking around for an different cinema experience, and with more and more older films, classics and cult hits, being re-tooled and re-released why not crash in and check out Cinematrocities, you will not be disappointed. See some of the films that shaped Hollywood and world cinema that you never heard of before Hollywood remakes them all.
If Hitchcock had faith in this genre, you can all. And if some of the cinema complexes offered Cinematrocities space in one of their cinemas once a month, they would make money, The Octopod would be a success just that little bit more and Cinematrocities would be a Newcastle icon we all could be proud of. Trust me, I’m a Dentist. HA HA HA HA HA HA!! (That was an evil laugh, sorry).
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