A run of positive news for cinephiles, and the previously shrinking volume of screens open in Seattle began to reverse course this past month with the announcement that, “Seattle Group Finalizing Deal to Reopen the Egyptian Theater”. This was soon followed by the biggest cinema news of the year, with the revealing of The Grand Illusion Cinema's new home, "A Grander Grand Illusion at the Varsity Theatre". The details of which soon followed, "For decades, the Grand Illusion has introduced Seattle audiences to new independent films, repertory classics, genre films, and cinema from around the world. Last year, we left our longtime home and have continued presenting films throughout Seattle while searching for a place where the Grand Illusion could continue to grow and thrive. We have found that place. The Varsity’s three auditoriums will allow us to dramatically expand our programming and revitalize a cultural anchor of the University District where people can gather, connect, and engage around the magic of movies. It also brings cinema back to the neighborhood. As recently as 2010, the University District had sixteen movie screens. Today, it has none. Soon, audiences will once again be able to enjoy a cinematic experience in the heart of the University District." This is our opportunity to be a component of the cinema's revival, as they have an open call to donate to the renovation and rehabilitation of The Varsity into the new Grand Illusion Cinema. For more than two decades, the finest array of crepuscular Halloween seasonal cinema offerings have been found at The Grand Illusion Cinema in their All Monsters Attack showcase.
This annual assembly of genre film and its disorienting frights, crepuscular surrealism, and discomfiting atmospheres would not be complete without a set of entries from the decade of the late 1970s, to 1980s. Nick Pinkerton's feature for Sight & Sound, and their "The Other Side of 80s America" highlights this decade of independent and genre cinema issuing from the United States. Concurrent with the pop culture revelry of Reaganite family-oriented dramas, action, teen movies, and sci-fi blockbusters, a more rebellious and independent strain of US movie making explored the darkness on the edge of mainstream society. Perfectly representative of this era and its concerns, is the political allegory, class conflict, gore and pure mania of Brian Yuzna's "Society". Also originating from the same set of years in the mid-to-late 1980s, is probably the finest of the Brian Yunza-produced series of notorious, psychedelic H.P. Lovecraft adaptations in Stuart Gordon's, "From Beyond". A highlight from previous year's programming returns with a memorial night for Seattle's most dedicated cinephile, music lover, and man-about-town, William Kennedy. Before his passing in 2021, Bill wished for nothing more than his friends and cultural compatriots to join together for a screening of the director's cut of David Cronenberg's classic body-horror techno thriller, “Videodrome”. A set of Japanese independents are also on offer. From the millennial cusp we get the eye-straining glorious colors and bizarre themes of the visions seen in Yukihiko Tsutsumi's "EGG". Going outside and above the conventions of pinku eiga, the high style and neon-drenched eroticism and unease of Hisayasu Sato is on display in, "An Aria on Gazes".
Some of the finest films of any genre in the pre-code era are on offer in Ernest B. Schoedsack & Irving Pichel's "The Most Dangerous Game", and RKO pictures at the hands of Val Lewton, who brought into the world a series of perfect collaborations with director Jacques Tourneur, represented here in, "I Walked with a Zombie". Other offerings as diverse as Hong Kong Horror, and raw 2000's American indie perfection are on the bill as Ching Siu-tung's "A Chinese Ghost Story", and "Session 9" by Brad Anderson, featuring a soundtrack by avant-gardists Climax Golden Twins. Of note, elsewhere in town there is the horror, genre and seasonal programming at The Beacon, alongside a minor selection of crepuscular cinema at Northwest Film Forum. Highlights from which are Jack Auen & Kevin Walker's indie cyber-breakout "Chronovisor", and the new 4K restoration of E. Elias Merhige's "Begotten", a film the New York Times claims will "Leave You Rubbing Your Eyes in Disbelief". SIFF Cinema presents Ken Russell's controversial and now uncut "The Devils" in a new restoration, as well as their annual collaboration with Scarecrow Video continues with their Halloween-themed assembly for the month of Scarecrowber. A nucleus for genre film in the Northwest, the one-of-a-kind 150,000 title resource steps up with their curated Halloween section of domestic and international horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and psychotronic selections. Their selections align with The 2026 Scarecrow Video Psychotronic Challenge, presenting a thematic viewing challenge for every day of the month.
