Bad Dreams Film Series

BAD DREAMS Film Series

To accompany Bad Dreams, Associate Curator Laura Burkhalter
has chosen three classic horror fims known for their surreal,
dreamlike imagery. Burkhalter will introduce each film.
All films will be shown in Levitt Auditorium and are FREE.

CAT PEOPLE

Sunday, November 14 / 1:30 pm
Jacques Tourneur, director / 1942
73 minutes / not rated

This stylish and atmospheric film follows a young man's romance with a mysterious woman whose deep fear of intimacy and dark family secrets threaten everyone around them. Intended as a cheap and quickly made "B" picture,
Cat People became a success with both audiences and critics, and is known as one of the pioneering films of the horror genre. Rather than monsters or violence, the film's
scares are created through darkness, shadows, and suggestion.

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

Sunday, November 21 / 1:30 pm
Charles Laughton, director / 1942
92 minutes / not rated

One of the strangest, most original American films ever made, Night of the Hunter has been cited as an influence by David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, and the Coen Brothers, among others. Told in an expressionist and lyrical style, the story of two children fleeing a serial killer unfoldes like a sinister fairy tale. Robert Mitchum's performance as the villian ranks widely as one of the most terrifying ever put to film.

REPULSION

Sunday, November 28 / 1:30 pm
Roman Polanski, director / 1965
105 minutes / unrated but intended for an adult audience

Catherine Deneuve stars in this story of a young woman's descent from paranoia to complete psychosis. Unwinding slowly while creating an atmostphere of claustrophobia, the film is punctuated with surreal and terrifying dream sequenes, and a progressively decaying sense of reality. Polanski's influences for Repulsion include Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho as well as Jacques Tourneur's Cat People (screening on November 14).