More Chicago monster revival stuff…

Updated on August 20, 2008 By Ken Begg 3 Comments

Amazing. This burg has been dead for this stuff for decades, and now it’s revival mania.

As previously noted, at least two groups (three, this last month) are renting Chicago gorgeous refurbished Portage Theater to hold more or less monthly horror/sci-fi bills. This weekned will see a triple bill of classic big bug movies; Bert I. Gordon’s Beginning of the End, The Black Scorpion, and Them!, all for $10. Them! is my favorite monster movie ever, so I’m totally hyped up.

A guy at the library I work at is actually involved with those shows, and he just informed me that next month, on September 20th, they will be holding another triple bill of Gorgo, Mad Monster Party (!!) and Invaders from Mars. How awesome is that? Meanwhile, they plan to do five or six nights of shows for Halloween, starting with one movie a night, doing two the night before, and a triple bill on Halloween itself. More info on that as it arrives.

Sadly, the Portage doesn’t put up info until the first of the month, so I don’t know who’s doing what else next month. However, there’s also the now yearly 24 hour horror marathon they do at the Music Box every October. Again, more details as I get them.

Good times.

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  • Jay

    ARRRRGH!!!

    Why can’t we get something like that in SoCal? The Inland Empire has gobs of beautiful old theatres, just begging for a good monster movie marathon!

  • turkish spock

    I’ve been attending the Portage stuff fairly regularly. The downside is that they’re often DVD projection, but I’m fairly tolerant of that after years of working for a non-profit arthouse and therefore knowing firsthand how hard it is to obtain actual exhibition prints for most of these films. And the price sure is right. Plus, sometimes the dealers in the lobby have great stuff. The last time I went, I got some old Charlton horror comics and the first issue of Gold Key’s Dr. Spektor series and got them cheap.

    The line-up for the Music Box’s October marathon is looking really strong and surprisingly old school so far. Should be a good one.

    Yeah, I’m pretty much catching up on my commenting all at once.

  • I’ve written before of my hope that digital projection of one sort or other would bring back revival houses. I think this might be a step in that direction, and they are running numerous events at the Portage monthly now. I too would prefer actual film prints, but the lack and expense of those, as noted on an earlier occasion, is what killed revival houses to start with.

    For the record, they projected off DVD for the three big bug movies this last weekend, and they all looked fine. King Kong is showing in a few weeks, however, and I think that’s off a newly struck 35mm print.

    TS, maybe we’ll meet up one of these days. Stay frosty.