“UNDEAD” SERIES AT WILKINSON PUBLIC LIBRARY

03 Jan “UNDEAD” SERIES AT WILKINSON PUBLIC LIBRARY

Telluride Film Festival Cinematheque at Wilkinson Public Library – The Undead:  A Series

Telluride Film Festival and the Wilkinson Public Library present the third installment of “The Undead: A Series.” The screenings take place Monday, January 7, starting at 5:30 p.m. for a pre-SHOW reception, including food and drink.

All community members are invited to experience Cinematheque, a free local resource for film lovers and aficionados who crave cinematic exploration, lively discussion and culinary delights. Programmed by Telluride Film Festival director Gary Meyer and TFF Telluride liaison Erika Moss Gordon, the six-part series explores the underworld of vampires, ghosts, zombies and witches from 1922 to present day through the lenses of internationally renowned procurers of horror Tod Browning, Val Lewton, Mario Bava, George Romero, Dario Argento, Guillermo del Toro, and many others.

Each fright-full evening is programmed as a double-feature. The first SHOW of 2013 opens with  “The Innocents” (1961, 100 min, Unrated).

Nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, director Jack Clayton’s haunting ghost story is based on the novel “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James. The screenplay was co-written by Truman Capote.  While caring for two orphans in a secluded British mansion, a governess begins to suspect that ghosts from the house’s prior inhabitants are trying to possess the children’s souls.

“Deborah Kerr is the sexually straitjacketed governess subject to either the ghastly duplicity of her dead-eyed charges or the threatening ghosts of the estate’s previous servants—or both—and it might be the most unforgettable performance by a British actress in its decade,” raved Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice

“The Innocents is followed by “The Haunting,” (1963, 112 min, Rated PG).

“Scandal, murder, insanity, suicide… the history of Hill House had everything I wanted. It was an evil house from the beginning… a house that was born bad,” Dr. Markway

Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson) is a paranormal expert who gathers an unlikely cast of characters at a haunted New England mansion in the hopes of stimulating and studying ghostly activities. The British psychological horror film was directed by Robert Wise and based on the Shirley Jackson novel “The Haunting of Hill House.”

For a preview, watch this trailer of “The Innocents.”