It’s Halloween weekend at Sleepy Hollow Cinema, and we’ve saved some sensationally terrifying treats for our final three nights of “Home For Horror” screenings, this Friday through Sunday!
Halloween eve on Friday, October 30th brings one more chance to cozy up with Johnny Depp as he hunts the Headless Horseman, right here in SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999) at 5pm!
Then, it’s a 16mm duo of dark delights, with THE EXORCIST (1973) at 7pm, and HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982) at 9:15pm, with special guest Michael Dougherty, director of TRICK R’ TREAT (2007), KRAMPUS (2015), and GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019), joining us in person to introduce the films and hang out with fellow horror fans, with his animated short SEASON’S GREETINGS (1996) playing before each film!
On Saturday, it’s Halloween night! We present a quartet of dark delights to celebrate the summit of spooky season! We begin at 3pm with the Disney LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW (1949) animated short, followed by ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES (1993), more time spent with everyone’s favorite freaky fam!
At 5:15pm, send the kids to gramma’s and get (un)lucky at Camp Crystal Lake and the original FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)! Then celebrate MORE of the night HE came home with HALLOWEEN II (1981) at 7pm!
We finish you off at 9pm with the modern horror anthology classic TRICK R’ TREAT (2007), preceded by the first appearance of “Sam” in the animated short SEASON’S GREETINGS (1996)!
On Sunday, November 1st, Halloween may be over, but we honor Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) with one more night of scary screenings, a trio of Spanish-language horror (presented with English subtitles) for our Spanish-speaking local audience, and those ready to take one last run through the cinematic graveyard.
We begin with an encore presentation of EL ORFANATO (THE ORPHANAGE – 2007) at 3pm, preceded by Michael Dougherty’s SEASON’S GREETINGS animated short, then at 5pm it’s the found footage frightmaker [REC] (2007), followed at 7pm by the 1970s slow-burn quiet creeper TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1972), to send you home with a newfound fear of withered zombies on horseback.
Why these films?
What made us choose this line-up to close out the 2026 “Home For Horror” October series?
See my first blog post for ruminations on SLEEPY HOLLOW.
We wanted to bring a little something different to Friday night, and with the help of local filmmaker and film collector Brian Darwas, 16mm comes to the Lyceum! Long the format of schools, summer camps, and microcinemas, 16mm screenings have been gaining great popularity of late, a way to experience old films on the format they were often seen on when films screened on TV or in non-theatrical spaces.
Analog adds to the throwback fun of seeing one of the scariest films of all time, William Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST with a group of people, a film that had people running out of theaters in terror when it was first released. In an audio commentary for the film by author William Peter Blatty (upon whose book the film is based), he said that over the years, people had told him they felt that “evil was woven into the fabric of the film”, such is its power to unsettle and disturb. We can’t say that we disagree, and seeing it in a quiet setting with fellow moviegoers makes it all the more memorable an experience.
Following THE EXORCIST is a film that tanked hard, both critically and commercially on its original release in 1982, HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH. Universal originally intended, after the seemingly definitive ending to the Michael Myers/Laurie Strode story in HALLOWEEN II (1981), for the HALLOWEEN franchise to continue with annual stand-alone stories that had nothing to do with the events of the first two films.
Apparently audiences didn’t get the memo, and the Northern California events of HALLOWEEN III, with beer-drinking lothario Dr. Challis (Tom Atkins) going up against the evil Silver Shamrock Halloween mask company, had moviegoers wondering where Michael went, and leaving the film behind like an empty popcorn bag. Decades later, the film is now arguably the second most popular entry in the franchise, a bizarre, creepy, ideal watch on Halloween eve, with star Atkins a fan favorite.
We’re thrilled that both films on Friday night will be introduced by TRICK R’ TREAT director Michael Dougherty, who expressed great excitement that not only would we be featuring his SEASON’S GREETINGS short throughout the month, but that he was able to join us for our 10/30 shows. He’s a fan like the rest of us, so get your tickets in advance and come out and chat him up!
Part of our mission at Sleepy Hollow Cinema is to provide a rich array of Spanish-language programming for our large local Spanish-speaking population, so it was a special thrill to program our Sunday selections, three Spanish horror films that terrified audiences and went toe-to-toe with contemporary American films in U.S. theaters during their original releases.
EL ORFANATO (THE ORPHANAGE) is one of the creepiest and most atmospheric horror films of the early 2000s, a horrific and heartbreaking tale that will stay with you long after you’ve seen it. When asked about my favorite “modern” horror films, this one always makes the list.
[REC] is a found footage tale, released in a boom year for the genre, told through the lens of a news camera and on-the-scene reporter, travelling with a fire department to a disturbance in an apartment building. A very DISTURBING disturbance. Effective to the degree that it spawned a series of sequels, but we’re not sure any match the original for impact and shocks.
TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD was the first in a series of four films from director Amando de Ossorio detailing the devious doings of the undead Templar Knights, sightless husks of former nobility, cursed to walk the earth in search of victims due to pay for their sins. Super atmospheric cult hits in their day that continue to have a following, we felt it was a fun way to cap off “Home For Horror”, with a deeper cut for hardcore horror fans, a tantalizing taste of what’s to come in future Cinema Local screenings.
And that’s it! Much more horror to come in 2027, from classics to deep cuts, premieres and sneak peeks! We’ll return with a much more leisurely schedule of far less disturbing films in November and December!