Something Wicked This Way Comes (16mm!)

Off-site at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater! Pre-reception and drinks at 7pm Show at 8pm (preceded by puppet show & circus performers!) Exactly when did Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival come to town? The inimitable literary master Ray Bradbury’s screen adaptation of his darkly fantastical 1962 novel conjures a crisp afternoon in late October, a month that, this particular year, heralds an unanticipated wind, electrically charged with whispers of mysterious music and wafts of intoxicating perfume signaling the arrival of Jonathan Pryce’s zooty, sinister “Mr. Dark,” ushering in Halloween one week early. A product of the strange decade between 1975 and 1985–when Disney still had the gall to shake us out of our cutesy, animated stupor and scare the living crap out of us–Something Wicked This Way Comes boasts unexpected turns from both Diane Ladd and Pam Grier, a sweeping score from Titanic composer James Horner, and a backwards carousel and mirrored funhouse that turn innocent, youthful wishes into the stuff of pure nightmares. Dir. Jack Clayton, 1983, 16mm, 93 min.