Cult Classics from the Rialto Collection
Sunday, October 30 | 5:30 pm
Produced at the tail-end of WWII, this singular, rarely seen horror anthology brings together several of the best filmmakers working under the celebrated banner of Ealing Studios—most widely known for wry, thoroughly British comedies like Kind Hearts and Coronets. Dead of Night’s framing narrative concerns an architect who attends a gathering at a country house only to find that he recognizes the setting and its inhabitants from a reoccurring dream. Intrigued by his predicament, the other guests regale him with their own bizarre tales of haunted Christmas parties, cursed mirrors, and fatal golf matches. Stylistically and tonally distinct, each episode bears the authorial stamp of its director; while some tales bristle with trademark Ealing wit, others are solemnly macabre. In the film’s standout sequence, which prefigures Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Alberto Cavalcanti weaves a ruthlessly unnerving yarn about an unhinged ventriloquist that, even seventy years later, remains the stuff of nightmares.
Directors Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, and Robert Hamer 1945 UK 103 minutes NR DCP
