Oct 20th! VOC Silent Film Harmonic returns with CINEMA SURREALISM!

We had to open all doors to the irrational...

Join us Thursday October 20th at 7:00pm

VOC Silent Film Harmonic live musical accompaniment to CINEMA SURREALISM

Something beyond comprehension...

Prepare to be haunted by this brooding presentation of landmark surrealistic short films, which explore themes of obsession and madness, chillingly enhanced by the VOC's spooky score.

Featuring Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) and La Chute de la Maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher)

Film 1: Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog, Dir. Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, Spain, 16 min.) Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.

"Luis Bunuel described it as 'nothing other than a desperate, impassioned call for murder'. Salvador Dali wanted it to 'plunge like a dagger into the heart of Paris'. They both wanted it to be as mysterious and illogical as a dream - indeed the script emerged during a conversation each had about the other's dreams. Bunuel later wrote, 'we had to open all doors to the irrational.'" (Little White Lies, 2017)

Film 2: La Chute de la Maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher, Dir. Jean Epstein, 1928, France. 66 min.) An unnamed man pays a visit to the decaying, aristocratic mansion of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher. He finds Usher to be demented... obsessed by death, consumed with fear that his beloved wife Madeline will die, and no less fearful that she will be buried alive. He spends his days painting an eerily lifelike portrait of Madeline, but with each brushstroke the life seems to drain from her.

"Avant-garde cinema arose in the 1920s when inspired amateurs schooled in other arts turned to film. The Fall of the House of Usher is the most renowned and technically accomplished work of these pioneers." (National Film Preservation Foundation)

One night only. Get tickets!

About the VOC Silent Film Harmonic

The VOC Silent Film Harmonic, under the direction of Ted Harms, was formed in the summer of 2007 with the idea of performing live & improvised music to accompany silent films. The group takes its inspiration from how many silent movies were originally presented - taking themes and using them as the basis for improvisation. The overall goal is for the music to reflect, enhance and support the movie, not to overtake or distract.

Previous Playhouse screenings with the VOC Silent Film Harmonic:

The Phantom Carriage

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Dragnet Girl

Nosferatu

Vampyr

VOC Silent Film Harmonic: Cinema Surrealism

**Oct 20th, 7:00pm. Live musical accompaniment by the VOC Silent Film Harmonic to landmark Surrealism short films, Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) and La Chute de la Maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher)**

Film 1 (16 minutes): Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.

Re-Animator in 35mm

Special 35mm presentation! A medical student (Jeffrey Combs) brings his headless professor back from the dead with a special serum.

Loosely based on H P Lovecraft's classic horror tale – Herbert West, a dedicated student at a medical college, and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue when an odd new student arrives on campus.

tickets & information

The Vanishing

Stanley Kubrick called Director George Sluizer after seeing The Vanishing to say that it was the scariest film he had ever seen.

A clinical, maddening descent into the mind of a serial killer and a slowly unraveling hero, culminating with one of the scariest endings of all time.

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Frankenstein (1931)

PG-13

Henry Frankenstein is a doctor who is trying to discover a way to make the dead walk. He succeeds and creates a monster that has to deal with living again.

Still unnerving to this day, Frankenstein explores the fine line between genius and madness, and features Boris Karloff's legendary, frightening performance as the monster.

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Bram Stoker's DRACULA in 35mm

30th Anniversary! The centuries old vampire Count Dracula comes to England to seduce his barrister Jonathan Harker's fiancée Mina Murray and inflict havoc in the foreign land.

Adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel. Gary Oldman plays Dracula whose lonely soul is determined to reunite with his lost love, Mina (Winona Ryder). In Britain, Dracula begins a reign of terror and seduction draining the life from her closest friend, Lucy (Sadie Frost). Together they try and drive Dracula away.

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