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Movie Blog: Another Midnight Series Bites The Dust

Putting together a midnight movie series must seem a little like a paradox these days.

The format was built from movies that, in general, were rejected by the mainstream. And yet these days, most midnight movies you see are not only mainstream hits, but they're firmly established '80s nostalgia cornerstones like Tron and Back to the Future.

How else to get people into the theaters? And yet, how many times can you expect people to show up for the same thing over and over again if they already own it on DVD?

Having had a hand in programming a midnight series myself back in the day, I can say that it's frustrating to figure out which movies will bring out the masses and which ones will play to an empty house. For every sure shot like The Goonies, there's dozens of others that tank. I remember being particularly crushed that Creepshow did zilch at the box office.

Which is all to say I give props to Justin Ayd at Willow Creek for trying to turn the tide, even with direct competition (right down to the titles) from the more centrally-located Uptown and Riverview.

Willow Creek's series of retro screenings comes to an end this weekend with screenings of Poltergeist (which I wrote up over here).

Come out on Saturday to bid a fond farewell with the movie that hovers in between life and death, to paraphrase the indomitable and similarly departed Zelda Rubenstein.

Heather O'Rourke - Poltergeist Trailer 1982 by arantes07 on YouTube
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