The Park Theatre To Celebrate Halloween With CHILLER FEST FILM SERIES

The Park Theatre will celebrate Halloween week with a Chiller Fest of four classic films filled with Gothic atmosphere, shadowy mysteries and vintage chills.

The lineup begins Wednesday, October 28, with the silent masterpiece The Hunchback of Notre Dame, featuring live organ accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, followed by The Bat Whispers. The suspense continues with Silent Night, Bloody Night on Friday, October 30, and The Vampire Bat on Halloween night, Saturday, October 31.

The festivities begin Wednesday, October 28, at 1:30 p.m., when The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) fills the Eppes Auditorium's big screen. Lon Chaney delivers one of silent cinema's most unforgettable performances as Quasimodo, the bell-ringer of Notre Dame who offers sanctuary to the persecuted Esmeralda. Directed by Wallace Worsley and adapted from Victor Hugo's novel, the film combines spectacular recreations of medieval Paris with Chaney's extraordinary makeup and deeply moving performance. New Hampshire musician Jeff Rapsis will provide live organ accompaniment, improvising the music as the action unfolds and recreating the excitement of a silent-era movie presentation. Tickets for this special event are $15.

Also on Wednesday, October 28, The Bat Whispers (1930) screens at 1:45 p.m. in the King 4K Screening Room and again at 4 p.m. in the Eppes Giant Auditorium. Presented in the UCLA Film & Television Archive's restoration of its pioneering 65mm widescreen version, director Roland West's atmospheric mystery follows a hunt for stolen money inside an isolated mansion, where secret passages, suspicious visitors and a masked criminal keep everyone guessing. Starring Chester Morris and Una Merkel, the film blends horror, mystery and comedy with inventive camerawork and dramatic shadows. Bob Kane later cited it among his inspirations for Batman. Runtime is 82 minutes.

On Friday, October 30, at 6:30 p.m. in the King 4K Screening Room, Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) brings a chilling Christmas Eve mystery to Halloween week. A man's return to a quiet New England town to sell his family's abandoned mansion, formerly a psychiatric hospital, threatens to expose long-buried secrets. Directed by Theodore Gershuny and featuring Patrick O'Neal, Mary Woronov, John Carradine and Walter Abel, this cult favorite builds suspense through ominous telephone calls, shadowy interiors and unsettling flashbacks. An early precursor to the modern slasher film, it runs 83 minutes.

The series concludes Halloween night, Saturday, October 31, at 6:15 p.m. in the King 4K Screening Room, with The Vampire Bat (1933). When villagers are found dead with their blood drained, panic spreads and suspicion falls on an eccentric local man with a fondness for bats. A skeptical police inspector, however, suspects something even more sinister. Directed by Frank R. Strayer, this fast-moving blend of Gothic horror, murder mystery and mad science stars Fay Wray, Lionel Atwill, Melvyn Douglas and Dwight Frye. Runtime is 63 minutes.

Tickets for The Bat Whispers, Silent Night, Bloody Night and The Vampire Bat are $10 general admission and $9 for seniors, students, active military and children. Tickets for The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Jeff Rapsis are $15. For tickets and details, go to theparktheatre.org or call the box office (603) 532-8888.