SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our SMC BIRTHDAYS Series, Wednesday, May 10, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate.
7:30pm THE WICKER MAN: THE FINAL CUT (1973, dir. Robin Hardy, Rialto, UK, 92mns, 4K DCP)
9:30pm MIDSOMMAR (2019, dir. Ari Aster, A24, USA, 148mns, Digital)
Tonight, Secret Movie Club Team Member Connor Crews guest programs one of his favorite movies the 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man and we pair it with a new horror gem it inspired-Ari Aster’s 2019 Midsommar.
If you’ve never seen the 1973 The Wicker Man, it still stands, fifty years later, as one of the most unsettling and unnerving horror movies ever made.
Eschewing jump scares and shocks, it instead is akin to having your head and heart put into a horror vise and having a smiling (beautiful or handsome even) torturer slowly but surely turn the handle until you scream at the last shocking scene.
The wait is worth it. The Wicker Man follows an uptight Christian mainland police officer Howie (Edward Woodward in an incredible performance) who flies to an isolated Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl.
What he finds is a cult headed by charismatic Christopher Lee (in one of his greatest roles) that worships sex, the sun, the spring in strange pagan rituals that make Detective Howie instantly uncomfortable the moment he sets foot on the soil.
But as Howie begins to realize just HOW strange the cult is, he comes to believe the young girl may have met an even more nefarious end. If you’ve never seen the movie however, nothing can prepare you for the ending. . .which to this day never fails to shock.
It’s so powerful, in fact, that Ari Aster based his 2019 Midsommar follow up to Hereditary on the foundations upon which The Wicker Man was built.
In Midsommar, we have a grieving college aged Dani (an amazing Florence Pugh in a breakout performance) following her ambivalent self-absorbed boyfriend Christian (the name is not a mistake) and his “bros” on a trip to a remote Swedish community they all expect to be more of a sex-fest than ostensible “research” trip.
However, it becomes immediately apparent after a gruesome ritual suicide ceremony of the village elders that this community is very detached from the “norms” of society elsewhere in the world.
Aster cleverly uses the 24 hours of daytime northern Scandinavian summers to disorient us and horrify us in ways we never imagined.
A biting satire as well on, among other things, the American mentality and expectations of foreign cultures, how people can exploit someone who is grieving, and even a takedown of more conventional religion, Midsommar is even more complex than a first viewing might suggest. Also ending with a shocking climax that would make The Wicker Man proud, Midsommar ultimately asks if Dani is the ultimate survivor or the ultimate victim of manipulators on all sides.
Come join us for two banger horror movies!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
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HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.