DEMENTIA 13 Screens at Schlafly Bottleworks November 2nd

“Castle Haloran is a bit perplexing, a very strange place really, old and musty, the kind of place you’d expect a ghost to like to wander around in.”

DEMENTIA 13 screens Thursday November 2nd at 7:00pm at Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 Southwest Avenue Maplewood, MO 63143). 

DEMENTIA 13 is famous for being the directorial debut of Francis Ford Coppola, but it’s more than that. No, really!

The film starts when a greedy widow covers up her husband’s death in order to get his share of his rich mother’s inheritance. During the course of her scheme she visits her husband’s relatives in the family’s castle. There she learns of their dark past, and finds more than she bargains for!

It sounds like a mystery, and, well, it is… but it’s also a proto- slasher horror film, with gore that won’t impress today’s fans, but the gore isn’t the point: The film owes much of its terror from its setting, its imagery, and surreal circumstances that have a tint of something otherworldly. From the sinister castle, with dark hallways, to the dead autumn plant life, daylight scenes that look like sunsets, and night scenes that are competently dark (a rarity at that time), the creepy music and some of the downright ghoulish scenes later on in the film, and you have a movie that looks scary without any unnecessary fog or smoke. The eerie music, crackling sound and even the contrasting tone on the grain of the film make it seem even more supernatural and horrifying at times.

As a low-budget black and white film from this era, there are mistakes, to be sure (and a few are quite painfully obvious). But the expert camera work, scene layouts, creepy sets, more than make up for it. Don’t miss it November 2nd at Schlafly Bottleworks

A Facebook invite for the event can be found HERE

www.facebook.com/events/820534514774117
$6  for the screening. A yummy variety of food from Schlafly’s kitchen is available as are plenty of pints of their famous home-brewed suds.

“Culture Shock” is the name of a film series here in St. Louis that is the cornerstone project of a social enterprise that is an ongoing source of support for Helping Kids Together(http://www.helpingkidstogether.com/) a St. Louis based social enterprise dedicated to building cultural diversity and social awareness among young people through the arts and active living.

The films featured for “Culture Shock” demonstrate an artistic representation of culture shock materialized through mixed genre and budgets spanning music, film and theater. Through ‘A Film Series’ working relationship with Schlafly Bottleworks, they seek to provide film lovers with an offbeat mix of dinner and a movie opportunities.