Tag: Violet Crown Cinema

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Pick: Wild Style

Wild Style. Photo: Submarine Entertainment

Art x cinema: Take movie night to the next level with this pairing of Wild Style and artmaking. The 1983 film follows South Bronx graffiti artist Zoro, who is commissioned to decorate a Lower East Side bandshell for an epic rap and break-dance concert. Starring greats such as Fab 5 Freddy, Lady Pink, Grandmaster Flash, and Lee Quiñones, the influential work is regarded as a seminal hip-hop film. Arrive early for IX Art Park’s pop-up art bar, which will offer painting, sculpting, and advice from teaching artists.

Wednesday 2/9. $12-13.50, 7:30pm. Violet Crown Cinema, 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. violetcrown.com

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Arts Culture

Carnival swindle

Nightmare Alley stars Cate Blanchett and Bradley Cooper. Photo: Walt Disney Studios

From start to finish, Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is a dreary, plodding, flashy reminder of why filmmakers should leave great movies alone. The William Gresham novel was adapted into a 1947 film noir classic, and again by Del Toro­—but Del Toro’s misuse of excellent source material is the real nightmare here.

The film follows Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a fugitive who joins a traveling carnival, and seduces Zeena (Toni Collette), a phony mentalist, to learn how to perform her alcoholic partner Pete’s (David Strathairn) sideshow tricks. Stanton gradually develops more sophisticated, lucrative con games, assisted by his younger lover, Molly (Rooney Mara). Unscrupulous psychologist Judith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) then aids him in grander, darker schemes.

Nightmare Alley has proved a box office bomb, just like the 1947 version, which tanked partly because pretty-boy lead Tyrone Power sought to shatter his nice-guy image by playing a lowlife, which only repelled audiences. It seems like 21st-century audiences are having a similar reaction to Cooper’s casting as a creep. That’s where the similarities between the two films end.

Director Edmund Goulding gave his Nightmare Alley a raw, tightly wound intensity, leaving the viewer feeling truly hellbound. Its portrayal of broken-down carny mentalist Pete remains one of the most terrifying depictions of chronic alcoholism in film history.

Del Toro, however, revels in silly excess. Hideous gore provides periodic sophomoric shocks. The film is totally humorless, and all style without substance. The camera roves needlessly, and the cast always seems to be lit with green gels. The film’s costume design and art direction are solid, but the sets become a distraction. One sequence takes place in an overwrought carny funhouse simply because Del Toro obviously thought it looked cool. Lilith’s office is an Art Deco stunner, but its visual splendor upstages Cooper and Blanchett.

As for the cast, Cooper is wrong for Stanton, and shows little of the cynical hardness that Power radiated. In interviews, Del Toro has derided superficial clichés that people generally associate with film noir style. But his film is devoid of any dark ambiance­—Blanchett lays her hokey femme fatale act on as cartoonishly as Carol Burnett impersonating Barbara Stanwyck. The supporting cast is better: Mara, Ron Perlman, and Willem Dafoe are standouts.

As with all his films, Del Toro gets derivative, and here he references everything from Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World” to Tales from the Crypt comics. An avowed fan of director Tod Browning, Del Toro lifts a memorable “spider girl” act from Browning’s The Show and aims to emulate Browning’s classic Freaks. Browning, however, actually drew on his own firsthand experiences working as a carny. Del Toro is merely referencing other people’s work—a kind of lame reality-twice-removed. Del Toro and co-screenwriter Kim Morgan affect authenticity by casually tossing in period slang like “blind pig” (a speakeasy), yet undo any genuine-sounding dialogue with anachronistic terms like “daddy issues.”

The seedy world of carnivals is deeply fascinating material, but here it’s just tedious. Like an actual carny, this Nightmare Alley is all a façade, as phony as a midway barker’s pitch. Although it’s not nearly as bad as Del Toro’s earlier remake of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, it’s just as unwelcome. Skip this and see the far superior original.

Nightmare Alley

R, 150 minutes
Violet Crown Cinema

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Arts Culture

Fun house

Lady Gaga and Adam Driver star in Ridley Scott's House of Gucci. Photo: United Artists

House of Gucci, the second film released in the past two months from director Ridley Scott, is fun to watch. The movie isn’t great, and it isn’t terrible, but it’s full of eye candy. (Scott’s other recent film, The Last Duel, was delayed by the pandemic and released in October this year, and features Ben Affleck and Matt Damon sporting haircuts far less fashionable than the group in Gucci.)

House of Gucci follows the true story of Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) and his tumultuous marriage to Patrizia Gucci, née Reggiani (Lady Gaga). The story begins in 1978, when Patrizia meets Maurizio at a party and falls for him—even harder after learning the awkward, bespectacled Maurizio is a Gucci and an heir to the fashion family fortune.

Their relationship causes a rift in the Gucci family, but Maurizio follows his heart and risks losing his inheritance when he marries Patrizia. The couple settles into a blue-collar life—he becomes a truck driver, unthinkable for a man with his lineage. But when Patrizia becomes pregnant, she uses it as leverage to reconnect with the Gucci clan, and the pair is welcomed back into the fold. The film then dives in to a whirlwind of scandals, reconciliations, and murder.

The Gucci name is synonymous with luxury and extravagance, and it’s repeated over and over to frame the family’s societal reach. Gaga’s powerful performance is spotlighted as she fights to use the name, and to be accepted as a Gucci—usually while shoving her wedding rings in whomever’s face she thinks needs to see them.

The true joy of watching House of Gucci comes from the disjointed and endlessly entertaining performances. As Maurizio, Driver does his best to be warm and understated, a sheepish guy who is willing to do just about anything to make his lover happy. (This very well could be the film where Driver smiles the most.) Gaga, meanwhile, lays it on thick as a passionate but occasionally unbalanced Italian who speaks more with her hands than with her mouth.

Jared Leto, caked with cosmetics, plays cousin Paulo. He completely embodies the incompetent Paolo, to the point where it becomes a detriment to the film’s cohesion. Every single choice Leto makes is distracting, from his Mario Brothers accent to his cartoonish physicality.

Aside from a brief runway show with new designer Tom Ford (Reeve Carney), House of Gucci seems uninterested in fashion, a perplexing choice for a movie about fashion’s first family. There is discussion of the famous Gucci scarf design, and Paulo shows off his own questionable designs every time he’s on screen, but these sartorial inclusions are used more as framing devices than as an appreciation of clothes.

Even with the colorful performances and juicy source material, House of Gucci manages to be a little dull. Maurizio and Patrizia’s relationship spans decades, and Scott drags us through every bump and reconciliation. At two hours and 38 minutes, the film shuffles along at its own pace, but it’s still enough campy fun to earn our attention.

House of Gucci

R, 158 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield & IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

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Arts Culture

Queer country

Bo McGuire wants people to see a new kind of South. Photo: VAFF.

If there was one guiding light throughout director Bo McGuire’s near-zero-budget filming of Socks on Fire, his tale of family division over his beloved Nanny’s house, it would be Dolly Parton know-how.

From the country icon, McGuire learned to “work with what you have.” He was at NYU, and had the equipment to make a film, but no funding. Meanwhile, his Aunt Sharon had kicked his drag-queen Uncle John out of his grandmother’s house in his hometown of Hokes Bluff, Alabama.

“This drama was going down in my family, who are characters in their own right,” he says. He also knew the local landscapes, which “look beautiful on film.” He decided to take a camera and couple talented friends down to Alabama to “see what happens.”

Until the day of filming, McGuire hadn’t decided if he was going to appear on screen. “I went to my closet and pulled out the brightest colors I could find—and I made sure I had accessories.” That, he says, is Dolly Parton know-how: making do with what you have.

Home videos interspersed throughout the film are evidence of the close-knit family McGuire grew up in. “It was emotional for me,” he says. “I felt very possessive and responsible for my grandmother’s legacy, while watching my family implode.”

The Dolly Parton influence can be seen throughout Socks on Fire. Photo: VAFF

He stresses that Socks on Fire, which refers to the airing of one’s dirty laundry—or in this case, the torching of it—is his own version of the event. “This is how I feel about it,” says McGuire.

His telling has poetry—and pyrotechnics. Local drag queens reenact parts of the family drama. And family members and friends appear on camera, turning the story into an homage to the important women in McGuire’s life.

“I was trying to capture what was going on and where I come from, somehow, in some mystical way.”

His mother didn’t understand why people would want to watch “our family being our family,” he says. “Then you have my Uncle John, who has been waiting for this moment. He loves the camera.”

Growing up in eastern Alabama, McGuire had no model for going into film. Instead, he studied creative writing and got an MFA in poetry. “I didn’t want to be an academic,” he says—he wanted to make music videos. At NYU, he studied with Spike Lee, who, it turns out, is a big Alabama football fan.

“He was very encouraging,” says McGuire. “I think he wants to see young filmmakers be rebellious.”

Making a movie in his hometown offered some production benefits in housing, locations, and feeding his crew. “People in Gadsden, Alabama, were excited about shooting a film, and they’re willing to let you do things for free,” notes McGuire.

Ultimately, he wants people to see a new kind of South. “Narratives of the South are often spun by people not from here,” he says. “The South gets scapegoated for a lot of the country’s problems.” 

McGuire says there’s a lot to love. “The largest percentage of LGBTQIA people exist in the Southeast. I just wanted to hold a mirror up to the South. You are a place that believes in original storytelling, where we’re queer, weird, out there, and different.”

A story about the disputed settling of an estate could have been bitter, but McGuire says he took care not to bully his aunt, who was his favorite growing up. “I would like people to see the love,” he says.

The Parton influence factored again when McGuire cooked breakfast for his crew and played generous host so that people wanted to collaborate and were excited about what he was doing.

“Being nice is Dolly Parton know-how,” explains McGuire. “You can get away with a lot more if you’re kind and generous.”

Socks on Fire

October 28

Violet Crown Cinema

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Arts Culture

Off the court

Citizen Ashe follows the life of tennis legend and Virginia native Arthur Ashe. Photo: VAFF

Citizen Ashe, by award-winning director Sam Pollard and Rex Miller, chronicles the life of tennis great and Virginia native Arthur Ashe, a trailblazing figure on the court and activist off.

Ashe was the first Black man to win a singles championship at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open. He was also the first Black man named to a U.S. Davis Cup team. But it was a heart attack at age 36 and subsequent bypass surgery that in many ways defined Ashe’s career.

Over the nine years following his first cardiac episode, Ashe embarked on a mission to advocate for heart health. But health issues continued to plague him. In 1988, Ashe was hospitalized yet again. Tests revealed he was HIV positive. Doctors said he likely contracted the disease from a blood transfusion received during his 1979 quadruple bypass.

As an activist, Ashe took on not only heart health and AIDS awareness but racial justice. He visited South Africa as part of a delegation promoting racial integration, and later, in 1985, was arrested for protesting during an anti-apartheid rally. Ashe protested mistreatment of Haitian refugees in 1992 and was again arrested for speaking out.

Born and raised in Richmond, Ashe was honored with a statue along the city’s Monument Avenue in 1996. Because of its location among Richmond’s many confederate memorials, the bronze sculpture showing Ashe holding a book and tennis racket and surrounded by children has become a touchpoint in the ongoing conversation about antiquity and historical injustice in modern American life.

Citizen Ashe is narrated by Ashe and features Johnnie Ashe, Stephanie Cookie Carson, and Donald Dell. The film attempts to put Ashe’s life into sociological context, examining the racial issues surrounding the predominantly white sport of tennis.

Citizen Ashe 

Violet Crown Cinema 

October 30

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Arts Culture

Sugar coated: Cambodian refugees chase the American dream in The Donut King

Streaming (Violet Crown Cinema)

Every chapter of American history, every aspect of American culture, and every American industry has been shaped by immigration. This is more than a political talking point. It’s a concrete reality, and nowhere is it clearer than in the story of the Cambodian influence in the donut industry. Alice Gu’s new documentary The Donut King chronicles the rise of unlikely mogul Ted Ngoy, and his lasting effect on the community he built and the confections we consume.

Ngoy came to the United States in 1975 with his wife and children, as refugees from the Cambodian civil war. He wandered over to a donut shop while on break from his job pumping gas, and fell in love. He immediately began training at the nearby chain, putting in long hours and eventually opening his own shop. Taking little money for himself and employing his family, he kept costs low and profits high, allowing him to open other stores. As the Cambodian civil war gave way to genocide by the Khmer Rouge, Ngoy used his success to allow more refugees to land on their feet in an unfamiliar country, leasing new shops to them and using his business as a template. Before long, the Cambodian presence in the California donut industry was so powerful that even Dunkin’ Donuts saw no inroads in the 1980s.

The Donut King is Gu’s first feature as a director, and she is keenly aware of the challenges of telling a story with such fluctuations in tone. This is a tale worth telling, but it’s not easy to balance images of a cute family-owned donut shop beloved by a community with one of the most horrendous events of the 20th century.

Gu is aided by her experience as a camera operator and cinematographer, capturing her subjects in their respective elements without judgment or affectation. She takes a light approach to the topic of donuts, employing colorful imagery and silly songs. But when it comes to the immigrant experience, business ownership, war refugees, or familial bonds, the subjects tell their own stories.

Gu’s light touch gives her interviews a human touch that escapes many documentaries, but it also makes one aspect of the story a little uneven. Without revealing too much, it’s helpful to think of achieving the American dream as the first chapter in a story, rather than the story itself. It’s a long fall if you leave yourself unprotected and don’t watch your step, and those who climb the highest and fastest can be victims of their own success. One of the most important events in the Ngoy family history is explored in less depth, raising questions in the audience’s mind when the documentary ends. We can wonder why Gu left it this way: sensitivity for the family’s privacy, fear of giving the film too many story arcs with not enough focus, or preferring to emphasize the role of community over the achievements of an individual.

Aside from the fascinating details of the story, The Donut King is always aware of the wider historical, political, and philosophical implications of its tale. Watching shots of Gerald Ford emphasizing the importance of immigrants in America, we’re reminded that political decisions made decades ago affect our reality today in tangible ways. Gu never specifically mentions immigration bans or modern day xenophobia, but it is a small leap for us to consider how those events are analogous to today.

There is an eternal question at the heart of The Donut King, which is not for Ngoy, Gu, or anyone involved in the narrative to answer. It’s up to us as a society. Who owns the achievements of an individual? Who then suffers for his failings? Is it that person alone, or representative of the community at large? Ngoy cleared the path for others to succeed, but without their hard work, he would not have profited as he did, and the innovations of his successors are far removed from his initial business model. Similarly, can America as a country claim credit for the accomplishments of the Cambodian community when immigrants today are so often met with xenophobia and skepticism? How can we accept one and vilify the other?

The Donut King tells the story of Ted Ngoy and his extended family, but it is primarily about ripple effects and the interconnectedness of our planet. The grandchildren of war refugees are defining what it means to be American decades later, using a food they did not invent but would not have been the same without them. As one interview subject observes: How many times do most Americans actually eat apple pie in a year versus donuts? The events of a half century ago directly impact the modern day. We should have the same consideration for future generations in our actions today.

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Arts

A body of art: UVA marks Merce Cunningham’s centennial with special screenings

To participate in the global celebration of the late choreographer Merce Cunningham’s 100th birthday, see Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance at Violet Crown on April 17, or catch an episode of “Mondays with Merce” at the Ruth Caplin Theatre through April 25. Photo by Annie Liebovitz

Over the course of her six years teaching dance in UVA’s drama department, lecturer and faculty member Katie Schetlick has noticed a shift in her students. More and more, she’s seeing students connect with the influential work of choreographer Merce Cunningham.

“A large body of his work is from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. But in some way, Merce’s work now relates more to the fragmentation of how we receive information,” Schetlick says. “There are fewer questions about how Merce’s work qualifies as dance. A few years ago, there was much more confusion about his work and what it was supposed to ‘mean’.”

It’s timely too, as 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of the late American artist’s birth. From London to Lyon, and from Charlottesville to Los Angeles, universities, dance companies, and artists around the world are commemorating the occasion. Schetlick and Kim Brooks Mata, director of UVA’s dance program, organized weekly screenings of the documentary mini-series “Mondays with Merce,” airing from 9am to 5:30pm in the lobby of the Ruth Caplin Theatre—on Mondays.

In the 16-part series, Schetlick says “you can see how hungry Merce is for the art form of dance, even after 70 years. You can see his childlike approach.” She points to the final installation of the series, which was the last interview the choreographer gave before he died. The 90-year-old Cunningham’s passion and reverence for dance is tangible. He simultaneously reflects on his legacy while embracing a rapidly changing future of art, and challenges the interviewer’s use of words like “good” and “lifelike” to describe art—as so many did during Cunningham’s lifetime.

“Art is full of life,” Cunningham says, laughing. “All kinds of art.”

Schetlick says, “you can see his endless curiosity about what movement is and what foregrounding movement is in dance. It’s not dance as a means for something. It’s movement in dance in and of itself.”

And Cunningham did start a movement. He shared a lifelong personal and professional relationship with composer John Cage, and collaborated with visual artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Charles Atlas. Schetlick says she’s been enamored by Cunningham’s “RainForest” since she saw it as a student in her first dance history class 12 years ago. The piece features a set with helium-filled mylar balloons designed by Warhol, and dancers with flesh-colored leotards that Jasper Johns slashed with a razor blade.

“The mylar balloons became another kinetic force in the piece and animated some of the ways that Cunningham was thinking about chance,” Schetlick observes. “You couldn’t predict what those balloons were going to do, so they became a force of change in the piece. …It stuck with me.”

Through Cunningham’s artistic collaborations and explorations, Schetlick says, he challenged what dance could be. He investigated the form of the body—asking questions about it from the early 1950s until his death in 2009. Cunningham’s focus on movement in its purest form is what Schetlick highlights for her students.

“He wasn’t interested in stories or messages through dance,” says Schetlick. “He let the movement guide understanding, rather than play in to concept or feeling—as if the body itself could speak. What we’re trying to impart on our students is the importance of dance. It’s the least supported art form in many different ways, but it carries so much weight.”

UVA’s drama department, The Fralin Museum of Art, and Violet Crown give the public another chance to join in the global commemoration with a screening of Atlas’ documentary Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance. The film explores the trajectory of Cunningham’s career through the lens of his close collaborator—from early footage of his dances to recent productions using choreography computer software.

“Even when he could no longer move,” says Schetlick, “he was still choreographing.”

To participate in the global celebration of the late choreographer Merce Cunningham’s 100th birthday, see Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance at Violet Crown on April 17, or catch an episode of “Mondays with Merce” at the Ruth Caplin Theatre through April 25.

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Arts

ARTS Pick: Getting animated at film fest

A variety of techniques, budgets and effects come together at the 19th annual Animations Show of Shows. The festival traverses themes of societal trends and modern anxieties with 16 screenings including The Burden, a quirky stop-motion short about how being trapped in a routine life makes the apocalypse seem liberating, and Everything, “a simulation of reality where you can see the world from everything’s point of view,” narrated by Alan Watts.

Tuesday, February 20. $9, 7:30pm. Violet Crown Cinema, 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. 529-3000.

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Living

Pop secret: Which movie theater’s kernels are king?

By Sam Padgett

If anyone is seeking an excuse to shovel popcorn into their mouth, now is the time. October is National Popcorn Month, and in celebration of America’s favorite cinema snack, we sampled all of the popped corn that Charlottesville’s movie theaters have to offer. Here are our findings.

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

Rating: 5 popcorns (scale of 1-5)

Appearance: Because the Alamo is both a movie theater and a restaurant, the popcorn here is served not in a bag or a bucket, but rather a metal bowl, elevating the snack to the level of a full-fledged appetizer.

Taste: While the regular buttered popcorn was delightfully delicate and perfectly salted and buttered, the truffled Parmesan buttered popcorn was a truly engaging culinary experience, lighting up both the salt and umami receptors on my tongue.

Overall: The popcorn here was made and presented not as a snack to be mindlessly consumed during a film, but rather a carefully constructed dish that can easily be enjoyed in individual bites—or a heaping, sloppy handful.

Violet Crown Cinema

Rating: Three popcorns

Appearance: Not only does Violet Crown smell overwhelmingly of butter, but the popcorn here was also shoveled out of a quintessential neon-lit popcorn machine, all of which creates a classic movie theater popcorn experience.

Taste: More so than every other location, this popcorn was merely dusted with both salt and butter, gliding right along the periphery of noticeable flavor.

Overall: Although Violet Crown’s popcorn was light on flavor, it could easily be consumed by the bucket without much notice.

Regal Stonefield Stadium 14 & IMAX

Rating: Four popcorns

Appearance: Behind a classically designed concession stand, the Regal’s gargantuan popcorn machine is visible, cluing in visitors that its popcorn has the authentic, rich buttery taste you’d expect from movie theater popcorn.

Taste: The popcorn was considerably heavy on both the butter and the salt, leaving both a delicious salty ring around my lips, and enough butter on my hands to stain whatever I touched.

Overall: When most people imagine a bucket of typical movie theater popcorn, this is exactly what they are thinking of.

Up for grabs

If you’re one of the many people who fondly remembers Flintstone’s Push-Up pops, then you are in luck. A new baking business called UpCakes combines the nostalgic frozen treat with cupcakes. Started by recent JMU grad and operating room nurse Megan Stolte, UpCakes offers custom push-pop cupcakes for any event. Besides evoking pleasant memories of summer treats, the push-pop design also allows for a totally portable and mess-free cake experience. And long gone are the days of flavors like Yabba Dabba Doo Orange: UpCakes offers unique flavors such as dunkaroos, one in a melon and puppy chow. Or you can special order any flavor, complete with a custom label, for events like anti-Valentine’s Day or National Wine Day. For more information, go to UpCakes Facebook page, or email eatupcakes@gmail.com. And if you want just a cake or two, look for UpCakes at the holiday City Market December 9.

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Arts

Group of friends brings on Curse of the Slasher Nurse

Buckets of fake blood and no CGI give the locally produced Curse of the Slasher Nurse a classic vibe. By Dave Kerr

A group of friends goes out to a secluded cabin in the woods—no other cabins within screaming distance, one of the friends claims—for a weekend of laid-back partying. As night falls and the group gets to some slightly drunken, scary storytelling, a tale about a woman who’s broken out of a psychiatric hospital becomes a bit too real.

So begins Curse of the Slasher Nurse, a new take on the classic slasher film, written, acted, directed and produced by a group of horror movie fanatics in Orange, Virginia.

Curse of the Slasher Nurse
Violet Crown Charlottesville
October 28

Dave Kerr, Amber Fulcher, Kea Raines and Josh Shifflett grew up watching 1980s flicks like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play and others with suspenseful, gory storylines in which psychopathic serial killers stalk and murder their victims, usually with bladed weapons. There was something appealing about the combination of feelings that these movies brought out in them, of being scared, amused and curious all at the same time.

After seeing plenty of bad slasher movies and feeling bored by current trends in the genre, the four friends decided to make their own slasher flick, one that in true classic fashion included plenty of blood, bad decisions, a little nudity and a good dose of comedy. So, they rounded up about $5,500 and some volunteer actors to film Curse of the Slasher Nurse in and around Orange.

Recent horror films like Hostel focus too much on trying to scare an audience that has already seen it all, says Kerr, who wrote and directed Slasher Nurse. These so-called “horror porn” movies are about maximum scare instead of suspense and, as a result, can come off dry in more ways than one—Kerr says that some modern horror films use too much CGI (and low-budget, bad CGI at that) while others, like the 2009 remake of the 1980 classic Friday the 13th, use too little blood.

And when there’s too little blood, the Slasher Nurse folks say there’s less room for comedy. Part of the delight of old slasher movies is the amount of blood—“there’s so much blood, blood everywhere, and if you really think about it, you wonder where all that blood is actually coming from,” says Fulcher, Slasher Nurse actor and producer. Sometimes there’s just no way all that gore came from a single severed hand.

Slasher Nurse special effects artist Raines (who also plays the titular title character) used about three gallons of fake blood, adding a little gelatin to it in some cases to make it more realistic. Fake blood is designed to splash and splatter like real blood, and it always looks better than CGI, says the longtime horror fan who’s been doing special effects for films and photography for about 10 years. Raines makes her own fake blood and for the lead character used latex, cotton balls and cotton pads, clay, paint and a variety of other supplies to create the nurse’s diseased skin mask, a severed arm, intestines, eyes, brain matter and more.

While Curse of the Slasher Nurse emulates many of its crew’s favorite horror films, it departs from the slasher tradition in one significant way: The film has an adult female killer, whereas most feature adult male killers (Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Chucky). Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother in Friday the 13th, is an exception.

The slasher nurse is “quite fearful,” says Fulcher. And Kerr promises creative kills, too—the nurse doesn’t murder any of her victims in the same way, he says, all in an effort to have audiences yell “Don’t open the door!” and “Look behind you!” in between handfuls of popcorn (and the occasional chuckle over cheesy acting and an excessive use of fake blood).

Mental notes

What to watch for during your next slasher movie marathon:

Producer/actor Amber Fulcher recommends films that showcase classic slasher qualities: Nightmare on Elm Street, Behind the Mask, My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, Sleepaway Camp

Writer/director Dave Kerr suggests some movies that you may have overlooked: The Burning: A commonly overlooked movie that “stacks up well.” My Bloody Valentine: Never got the sequel it deserved…mainly because they unmasked the killer. Behind the Mask: A departure from the usual slasher archetype. Slaughter High: Another underrated film. The actor who played the killer died by suicide not long after the movie wrapped. Silent Night, Deadly Night: This takes “something loved by everyone and turns it into something horrifying,” says Kerr.

Kea Raines says keep your eyes peeled for super freaky special effects scenes in: Evil Dead (2013 remake): There are two good ones here, when Mia splits her tongue with the knife, and when The Abomination cuts himself in half with a chainsaw while the sky rains blood. Bride of Chucky: Tilly’s bathtub electrocution. The Devils Rejects: Dr. Satan rips out nurse Marcia’s throat. Psycho: Norman Bates stabs Marion Crane in the shower.