For the first time in nearly two decades, Seattle's annual Halloween season cinema offerings will not have a central locus at The Grand Illusion Cinema in the University District. This year, their sister organization, the one-of-a-kind 150,000 title resource in that is Scarecrow Video launched their Sustain Our Scarecrow campaign. Wherein the last video store and film archive of its kind in the world is at a pivotal intersection in which, "Scarecrow Video Needs to Raise $1.8M or Face Possible Closure". A nucleus for genre film in the Northwest, annually Scarecrow Video steps up with their curated Halloween section of domestic and international horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and psychotronic selections. Another annual tradition, their Psychotronic Challenge returns now in its tenth installment, challenging viewers to select a new theme category for every day in October from the trivia cues on offer. Similarly in the way of Scarecrow Video, The Grand Illusion Cinema is also in a state of flux as their building has been sold and is imminently to be developed into high-cost housing. "After 53 years, Seattle Theater Maintains its Grand Illusion … for Now, and as such they are in a donation drive to fund their search for a new location.
Subsequently this year's edition of their seasonal programming, the incomparable All Monsters Attack, will be hosted elsewhere at partner cinemas and organizations across the city. Highlights this year include Henri-Georges Clouzot's arthouse psychothriller, "Diabolique", the annual tradition of the William Kennedy memorial screening of David Cronenberg's body-horror techno thriller, “Videodrome”, James Whale's classic Universal Monsters franchise entry, "Bride of Frankenstein", the extreme discomfiting physicality of Lucky McKee's cult sleeper, "May", a selection of Japanese video and cult horror, and The Sprocket Society's presentation of 16mm gems curated as their Secret Vault of Torment. SIFF Cinema's seasonal offerings focusing on disorienting frights, crepuscular surrealism, and discomfiting atmospheres are programmed by the staff at Scarecrow Video, which SIFF have appropriately dubbed the month of Scarecrowber. This year's theme, "When There Is No More Room In Hell, The Dead Will Walk The Earth", features Robert Fuest's absurdist, musical, "The Abominable Dr. Phibes", medieval horrors return in Amando de Ossorio's rarely screened "Tombs of the Blind Dead", Hajime Sato's extraterrestrial enigmas, "Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell", and the gothic, psychedelic, Czech cinema coming of age kaleidoscope of Jaromil Jires' "Valerie and Her Week of Wonders".
