By Shabana Gupta
guptasha@grinnell.edu
Running from October 11 to 13, the Loft Theatre in the Grinnell Arts Center will be showing three amazing horror films, “Night of the Living Dead” on Oct. 11, “Let the Right One In” on Oct. 12 and “Salem’s Lot” on Oct. 13. This mini film festival will have free admission for students, and a $5 ticket or $12 weekend pass available to adults. Popcorn and soda are free for everyone, and people are more than welcome to bring along their own snacks.
The three main members of Reel Grinnell—Erik Jarvis, Wendy Abrahamsen and Brian Mitchell—chose their favorite spooky movies. Jarvis is the Events Manager of the Grinnell Area Arts Council. He wanted to watch “Night of the Living Dead” not only because it’s a good movie, but because he loves George A. Romero’s directing.
“Director George A. Romero makes viewers look at how humans treat each other in the midst of crisis. That’s a big theme in horror films—what’s scarier, the monster or the humans themselves,” Jarvis said. “Night of the Living Dead” was one of the movies to really start off the zombie movie craze.
“Let the Right One In” is an award-winning Swedish film. The story mixes flavors of a gripping horror movie with touching moments. It looks at loyalty and sacrifice. The movie was Abrahamsen’s pick.
Mitchell chose “Salem’s Lot.” This was a mini-series based on the Stephen King novel. It is a vampire murder mystery following an author as he researched for his next book. This is the only PG movie of the group with a total run time of 200 minutes, so there is a break for dinner in the middle.
“The goal of Reel Grinnell is to show classics films and foreign films, just ones you can’t get at the Strand,” Jarvis said. “You can’t go too obscure or you can’t find the license [for it].”
“We’re hoping some students will come for sure,” Jarvis said. “Horror fans will [definitely] come and probably just people who like films will come check it out.”
Jarvis wants the experience to be “somewhere between going to a movie theater and just watching a movie at home with your friends.”
The Loft Theatre is located at 926 Broad Street, and admission is free to all students. For more information, contact Erik Jarvis at erik@grinnellarts.org or call the Grinnell Arts Council.
