Halloween at the Movies: Part 1 - The Events

If you're like a good deal of us, you may not have any kind of clue what you'll be doing for Halloween this year. Or, maybe it is just us. Regardless, perhaps you're not in the party mood, but you don't feel like staying home and handing out candy to your neighbors' kids. Maybe you want to go out, but don't feel like dressing up. Maybe you just want to enjoy the holiday, and the associative festivities, without putting the effort into it. Or, maybe you have a kick-ass zombie outfit that you're dying to show off, thereby putting other so-called kick-ass zombie outfits to shame. Well, over the the next few days we'd like to provide you with a hefty dose of options for you to enjoy around town that combine the wonderful world of film with a thematic relation to our country's greatest holiday that we don't get off from work.

First up, we have the Alamo Drafthouse events going on around town, starting as early as Thursday the 29th.

Dismember the Alamo
For the third year in a row the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek is pulling out its axes and firearms in preparation for their annual Halloween celebration of brain eating, flesh melting, and undead snow Nazis. Starting on Thursday, October 29th and running through Halloween night, the Alamo Drafthouse establishment on North 183 is offering up a slathering of activities and zombie flicks to get you in the right kind of mood to go home, eat candy, and frighten little children.

Starting on Thursday night there will be a showing of the 80s anti-classic Night of the Comet, followed by a 35mm print of Night of the Living Dead to be played with a live music show. Friday night will begin with a screening of Canadian zombie film Pontypool, and afterward is a series of fat-trimmed horror film remixes, which are films cut down to the bare essentials: just gore, action, and nipples with none of that unnecessary talking and exposition in between. Saturday night (Halloween night) the Drafthouse will have their zombie shorts competition&mdas;which has become a Dismember the Alamo staple—and will end the night with a Texas Premiere of the Nazi zombie film Dead Snow.

Throw in some massive Left 4 Dead game-playing to occur at all times in the lobby each night and the folks over at the Alamo Lake Creek seem eager to get you to ring their doorbell more than once this year.

Zombie Prom at The Highball
Did you happen to miss your high school prom? Was it your current significant others’ fault? Do you kinda feel like hittin’ him/her over the head with something unforgiving? Well, Tim and Karrie League don’t exactly want you to resort to violence (we don't think), but they would like you to make it look like you did while you were on your way to a costume party after having risen from the grave. If you can pull of this look then you should head over to The Highball for what may be the biggest party of the night.

There’s really only one rule: you absolutely must be in zombie costume. Oh, and you have to buy a ticket; otherwise it's just the one rule. However, the interpretation and imagination regarding said costume is up to you. After all, this is Halloween, and people very well could have been on their way to a costume party before being attacked by a legion of the undead, and that’s the theme of the night. The grim folks at The Highball want to see you take a typical costume, and zombie it up. Ninjas, nurses, angels, bikers, clowns, you name it, as long as you add some saggy flesh, and discolor your skin tone.

The prom itself will be held at the Highball and will begin at 9:30, but you can purchase a double feature ticket to the zombie prom and a screening of the film that inspired the event, the horror comedy Dance of the Dead, with members of the cast and crew in attendance. The film begins at 7:00 p.m. at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, and right after you can walk over to The Highball and get yer ‘thriller’ on.

Master Pancake Carves up A Nightmare on Elm Street
Master Pancake shows are probably the only place on Earth where you can feel comfortable laughing at a child killer. Probably. But, that’s how the Pancake crew gets down. This Halloween the Master Pancake Theater will perform their roast of A Nightmare on Elm Street, complete with live commentary wit, probably some booze, but, ironically, no pancakes. However, what they lack in tasty breakfast cakes they make up for in clever observational humor, role playing skits, and fearless sarcasm. And drinking games.

The troupe will be performing on both Friday, and Saturday night with shows at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. both nights. If you like some laughs with your scares, or want to see what a promising talent Johnny Depp was before he plummeted into obscurity and eventually became the man nobody had ever heard of anywhere on the planet, then check out the Pancake show. If you don’t like A Nightmare on Elm Street it’s okay because they’ll make you soon realize how absurd the film is; and if you do like scary movies then you’ll love it because they’ll make you soon realize how absurd you are for liking A Nightmare on Elm Street. Everybody wins.