Chester’s Storyhouse presents special season of chilling cult classics and horror favourites

Storyhouse is presenting a special season of chilling cult classics and horror favourites on the big screen this Halloween in association with the British Film Institute.

In Dreams Are Monsters, running from 5 October to 2 November, takes place at Storyhouse while it also sees the hugely popular Moonlight Flicks return to the Carriage Shed, located behind Chester Railway Station.

The season, which is running as part of a UK-wide film event, includes a special 100^th anniversary screening of the original silent film of Nosferatu, complete with a live score played by Frame Ensemble.

The 1922 movie, an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula directed by FW Murnau and starring Max Schreck and Ruth Landshoff, is widely regarded as the most influential horror film of all time.

It will be shown in the Storyhouse Movie Theatre on Monday, 24 October.

Meanwhile the Storyhouse Cinema will host entertaining and thought-provoking vampire  films from the last 40 years.

The season opens on Wednesday, 5 October with Let The Right One In (15), a Swedish take on the traditional vampire film which is part first love story and part ultimate revenge fantasy for its bullied 12-year-old protagonist Oskar. The film is in Swedish with English subtitles.

It continues on Tuesday, 11 October with Ganja & Hess (18), a radical take on the vampire genre with hallucinatory visuals. Black anthropologist Dr Hess Green is researching the Mythrians, an ancient African nation who ritually drank blood, but when he is stabbed by a mystic dagger wielded by his deranged assistant, it awakens an unquenchable thirst.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (15), on Wednesday, 19 October, is set in the fictional Iranian ‘Bad City’ where a young woman stalks the streets, preying on those who show a lack of respect. It will be screened in Persian with English subtitles.

David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon star in the stylish New York-set erotic horror The Hunger (15) on Wednesday, 26 October. Deneuve is the beautiful, vampiric Miriam who promises her lovers (including Bowie’s John) eternal life – but not eternal youth.

And on Wednesday, 2 November there’s a chance to see Carmilla (15), inspired by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella of the same name and starring Jessica Raine, Tobias Menzies and Greg Wise in a coming-of-age supernatural gothic horror.

In Dreams and Monsters also sees a welcome return to the Carriage Shed for the hugely popular Moonlight Flicks series.

The Halloween weekend kicks off on Friday, 28 October with vampire favourite Twilight (12), the film which shot Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart to stardom. Adapted from Stephanie Meyer’s novel it tells the story of the teenage Bella Swan (Stewart) and her burgeoning relationship with the mysterious Edward Cullen (Pattinson).

It continues on the same evening with a screening of Night of the Living Dead (15), the cult 1968 film directed by horror master George A Romero and packed with ravenous zombies.

On Saturday, 29 October, film fans can catch New Zealand-set vampire flatshare mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows (15) and 1980s cult classic The Lost Boys (15).

In What We Do In the Shadows, Viago, Vladislav, Deacon and Petyr are vampires coping with everyday problems of 21^st Century living. The film, directed by Jermaine Clement, numbers Taika Waititi among its cast.

Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Corey Haim and Jami Gertz star in The Lost Boys, Joel Schumacher’s cult hit in which bad boy teen vampires on motorbikes shake up a quiet Californian town.

And the Moonlight Flicks weekend closes on Sunday, 30 October with The Craft (15). First released in 1996, The Craft centres around teenager Sarah (Robin Tunney) who moves to a new town and gets caught up with a group of girls in school who dabble with witchcraft and worship a pagan God. The film also stars Neve Campbell, Fairuza Balk and Skeet Ulrich.

In Dreams Are Monsters is a major nationwide film and events season led by the BFI and supported by the National Lottery, charting how the monsters of horror have evolved over the past century, made physical the anxieties of their time – and how we react when faced with the monster within.

Storyhouse film and digital programmer manager Nicky Beaumont says: “I’m so excited about this collaboration with the British Film Institute which will enable Storyhouse to present some fantastic films from the last 100 years of the horror genre on the big screen. 

“Nosferatu is rightly regarded as of huge importance in the history of the cinema, and to see it screened with a live soundtrack will be a very special experience. 

“And it’s also great to return to the Carriage Shed with Moonlight Flicks after our successful Christmas programme last December. Chester cinephiles are going to be spoilt for choice this Halloween.”