American Pastoral
Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut is an adaptation of Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Not screened for critics. Various Theaters.

B-Movie Bingo: Gymkata
Your monthly opportunity to literally check off a bingo card full of B-movie clichés—but this month, the game is completely optional, thanks to a movie that is landmark in the history of schlock cinema. A movie—nay, the only movie—to carefully blend the skill of gymnastics with the kill of karate: GYMKATA. Even occasionally looking down at your lap to mark off that Bingo card means you’re sacrificing precious seconds you should be spending in rapt wonderment of Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas as he treks through the country of Parmistan, killing as many goddamned ninjas as he can with his fleet feet, his tight thighs, his bare fucking hands. BOBBY ROBERTS Hollywood Theatre.

Cat People
Paul Schrader’s adaptation of Val Lewton’s story about a woman who is also a werecat, doomed to turn into a panther when she gets horny. The premise itself is kind of loopy and disturbing, but when fed through the distorted amplifier that is early ’80s Schrader (and Jerry Bruckheimer) it becomes this ridiculously fucked-up... thing that must have played like an answered prayer for those anticipating its expert blend of softcore sex and panther maulings. Fifth Avenue Cinema.

Demon
See review, this issue. Cinema 21.

recommended Eraserhead
The Lady in the Radiator. The baby. Jack Nance. His awesome hair. The spookiest sounds ever committed to celluloid. Eraserhead! This David Lynch movie makes me feel like squishing oozy sperm things and singing, "In heaven/everything is fine/You've got your good things/and I've got mine." Screens as part of the NW Film Center’s October After Dark series. COURTNEY FERGUSON NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.

Halloween Double Feature
Before the Rob Zombie remakes, before that weird detour into druid possession or whatever-the-fuck happened in the last three movies, before Halloween III confused the shit out people by trying to turn it into a horror anthology, the Halloween series consisted of two films: The 1978 original by John Carpenter, still a landmark of independent cinema, and the 1981 follow up by Rick Rosenthal, which isn’t anywhere near as good but is still a mean-yet-fun slasher movie. Here’s your chance to catch ’em both back-to-back on the big screen. Academy Theater.

recommended The Handmaiden
See review, this issue. Cinema 21.

Inferno
See review, this issue. Various Theaters.

recommended The Innocents
Deborah Kerr was not the first name a casting agent would have conjured up to lead an adaptation of Henry James' gothic horror Turn of the Screw, but in 1961 she received her script (co-written by Truman Capote) and stepped in front of Jack Clayton's camera to deliver the performance of her life in one of Britain's best ghost stories ever. Screens as part of the NW Film Center’s October After Dark series. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.

recommended Insecure
See review, this issue. HBO.

recommended Into the Inferno
See review, this issue. Netflix.

The Killing of America
Usually documentaries aren’t thought of as being the kind of genre you need to watch out for regarding exploitative content, but Sheldon Renan and Leonard Schrader’s 1981 film about our country’s history of (and penchant for) senseless violence was so controversial that no distributor in America would pick it up. Tonight the Hollywood shows it in its fully restored and uncut form. Hollywood Theatre.

Michael Moore in Trumpland
A concert film very much of the moment, staged, shot, and post-produced within the last month, featuring the outspoken filmmaker performing a one-man show for an audience deep in the heart of Trump-friendly southern Ohio. Hollywood Theatre.

Ouija: Origin of Evil
While 2014’s Ouija was a forgettable foray that built its flimsy house of spirits on jump scares and teenagers’ casual dropping of such Victorian terms as “planchette,” Origin of Evil is a smarter bit of demonic possession. A single mom (Elizabeth Reaser) struggles to pay the bills with her fortune-telling business until she buys Hasbro’s ouija board game, which provides her with a cottage industry of ghostly proportions (nice marketing!). But thanks to ouija, her youngest daughter, the creepy Doris (Lulu Wilson), starts seeing every dead thing under the sun. Murder and jump scares ensue. COURTNEY FERGUSON Various Theaters.

recommended The Phantom of the Opera
1925’s Lon Chaney classic, featuring live organ accompaniment by Martin Ellis. Hollywood Theatre.

The Pit
Trick-or-treat at other places and you’ll get some mini Baby Ruths and maybe a Butterfinger or two. Stop by the Hollywood and the treat you get dumped in your lap is a screening of this digitally restored 1981 Canadian horror classic, featuring a perverted little kid, his evil teddy bear, and the slavering, bloodthirsty monsters he feeds at the bottom of a pit in the woods. Hollywood Theatre.

recommended Rosemary’s Baby
Roman Polanski's 1968 maternal-jitters flick is simultaneously one of the scariest horror movies ever made and one of the funniest black comedies of all time. Mia Farrow plays an expectant mother who fears a clan of Satanists has an eye on her unborn child. Is she hormonal? Paranoid? OR IS SHE RIGHT? Rosemary’s Baby is wonderfully creepy (and pretty hilarious), proving that despite his real-life creep factor, Polanski knows what he’s doing behind the camera. NED LANNAMANN Hollywood Theatre.

Seven
“He’s a nutbag. Just because the fucker’s got a library card doesn’t make him Yoda.” Mission Theater.

Under the Shadow
Babak Anvari wrote and directed this supernatural thriller about a mother and a child in 1980s Tehran (which was already a tough enough setting) having to combat a house full of evil spirits. Living Room Theaters.


recommended MEANS WE RECOMMEND IT. Theater locations are accurate Friday, October 28-Thursday, November 3, unless otherwise noted. Movie times are updated daily and are available here.