Double Feature

The Thing

While our allotment of advance tickets has sold out online, some additional tickets will be available to purchase at the door on a first come, first served basis on the night of the show. Box office & doors open roughly one hour before the first film. For shows that have sold out online, in-person ticket purchases are limited to 2 tickets per person.

As a beautiful black and white Malumute sprints through the pristine snow towards a research station, a Norwegian helicopter fires at it from above in John Carpenter’s deliberation on paranoia and trust (or lack thereof), in his horror-thriller-monster-movie remake The Thing, both the cast and the audience get to reconcile in real time – “Who in the hell would shoot at that beautiful dog and why?” The answers come soon enough, and they are as gruesome as they are terrifying, as Kurt Russell leads a strong ensemble cast (Wilford Brimley, David Clennon, Keith David, Richard Dysart, Ricahrd Masur, Peter Maloney, T.K. Carter, Joel Polis, Charles Hallahan, Donald Moffat and Thomas Waites) that fight for their survival against an alien life form that has assimilated into the dog’s DNA, and remains alive on a cellular level, even after the dog is incinerated – searching for a living host. With its in-camera special effects that moved the needle forward in that art form, while raising the bar on what remakes should aspire to, The Thing stands as Carpenter’s masterpiece, and continues to influence filmmakers both young and old, in this claustrophobic whodunit.

“A great barf-bag movie” – Roger Ebert

“The scariest movie I ever saw was John Carpenter’s The Thing” – John Sayles

“The Thing is a peerless masterpiece of relentless suspense, retina-wrecking visual excess and outright, nihilistic terror.” – Adam Smith, Empire Magazine

“Shows more originality, wit and invention than possibly any other film you might call a remake… as influential as Alien for its blend of action, sci-fi and chilling horror.” – Film4

Kim Morgan discusses The Thing on the New Beverly blog.

Garret Mathany interviews actor Thomas G. Waites for the New Beverly blog.

Body Snatchers

Imagine… you’re gone and someone else is living inside your body. Abel Ferrara’s dread-laced update of Jack Finney’s classic novel is terrifyingly efficient, cramming more paranoid terror into its swift 87-minute runtime than should be medically allowed. When an EPA agent arrives at an Alabama military base with his family in tow, they’ll soon discover some people are strangely not who they seem. Gabrielle Anwar stars a teenager already suspicious of those around her while Meg Tilly is unforgettable as her new stepmom.