THE film-mad folks at Newcastle Community Cinema (NCC) are taking a real cinematic chiller on the road this Halloween with a special screening of John Carpenter's The Thing at South 13 in Belfast.
Monday night's show promises fans a "full bar, food stalls and exploding spider heads", plus (presumably) plenty of fake snow and a complete lack of heating to create an authentic Antarctic atmosphere complementary to this classic icebound sci-fi horror.
While other cinematic versions of The Thing are available (all based to greater or lesser extent on the novella by John W Campbell Jr, Who Goes There?), only the 1982 movie benefits from Carpenter's masterful manipulation of dramatic tension, Dean Cundey's moody visuals, Ennio Morricone's pulsing electronic score, Rob Botin and Stan Winston's deliciously horrific practical special effects and, of course, the mighty Kurt Russell as bearded chopper jockey turned parasitic alien slaying bad-ass RJ MacCready.
And, as if that wasn't enough to get you in a suitably spooky Halloween frame of mind, this evening finds NCC putting on a rare triple bill of George A Romero's classic zombie trilogy at their HQ on Newcastle's Main Street from 8pm.
By the time you've watched Night of The Living Dead, Dawn of The Dead and Day of The Dead back-to-back, you'll be racing home to board up all the doors and windows – though that's still no guarantee of keeping determined trick or treaters at bay.
Tickets and full information via Newcastlecinema.org
