Ithaca Blog

Thursday, October 30, 2008

"Night of the Living Dead" at State Theater on Halloween

Ithaca has always been big on Halloween. Maybe, as a place based on serious schooling, we appreciate a holiday of costumes, fake fright, and silliness.

Halloween this year should be a bigger party than usual, falling on a Friday, with good weather in the forecast.

The State Theater is holding a perfect event for the een: a showing of the classic 1968 horror film, "Night of the Living Dead."

The show marks the first screening of a film in the full State Theater since 1976, when the balcony was walled off to form a duplex. The wall was removed a decade ago, when the theater became a live performance theater.

"Night of the Living Dead" was produced in Pittsburgh, for a little over $100,000, by unknown director George Romero. It has since become a cult favorite. It has been called "the progenitor of the contemporary 'zombie apocolypse' sub-genre of horror film," and "an influence on the modern pop-culture zombie archetype."

If that won't get you out and into the movies, on Halloween, we don't know what would.

Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 for adults, $2 for children under 12, but we don't know about bringing children under 12, sophisticated as modern children may be. We first saw this picture on TV at age 14, and stayed awake all night staring at the closet door, waiting for it to move.

Steve Burke
for Ithaca Blog

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