Mike Madrigale loves horror movies.
He loves the old ones with Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman.
He loves the ones where giant radioactive ants crush towns and the ones where a group of teens goes camping and gets picked off by some deranged guy in a hockey mask.
He loves fast-paced and silly ones, those that have serious social commentary and those that are filled with blood, guts and gore.
Madrigale, the owner of Mr. Suit Records, loves them all.
“I have no idea,” he says with a chuckle.
But he remembers back when he was a kid in the 1980s, he’d haunt video stores for horror movies.
“I started watching them and I never really stopped.”
Madrigale will be sharing five horror films — featuring everything from Nazi zombies to Jason Voorhees — with audiences at Zoetropolis this month.
Normally, Madrigale and his fiance, Colleen McCauley — another horror movie lover — present a horror movie every First Friday at Zoetropolis. They call it Fright Night, beginning at 9 p.m.
Dead Snow"
But since this is the bewitching month, Fright Night will be held every Friday night in October.
Here’s the lineup:
Oct. 6: “Trick ‘R’ Treat” (R)
This 2007 film weaves together four stories set at Halloween. There’s a high school principal who moonlights as a serial killer; a college-age virgin waiting for that special someone; a couple who have very different ideas about Halloween and a nasty group of teens that carries out cruel pranks.
Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker, Brian Cox and Leslie Bibb star.
“The stories intertwine. They will go back and show something happening in the background that’s from a different story,” Madrigale says. “It’s a fun, well-made anthology movie.”
Oct. 13: “Friday the 13th Part 3” (R)
Jason Voorhees, the deranged guy in the hockey mask, is back at Crystal Lake, terrifying rich girl Chris (Dana Kimmell) and her summer cottage guests. (You’d think they would learn to stay away from Crystal Lake!) Practical joker Shelly makes a leather-clad band of motorcyclists angry and keeps staging mock mutilations. Not too smart.
“We will be having a double feature that night,” Madrigale says. “It will be another film from the series, but it’s a surprise.”
A scene from "The SHining."
Oct. 20: “Room 237” (NR)
“This is actually a documentary,” Madrigale says. “It’s interpretations and theories about ‘The Shining.’ They range from the movie being about colonialism to Stanley Kubrick (the director) using the movie to show he faked the moon landing.”
The most fascinating thing about the movie, according to Madrigale, is how people can use the most minuscule details to prove their theories.
“The movie isn’t about convincing you that the people are right, it’s looking at all the ways people can look at something,” he says.
Oct. 27: “Dead Snow” (R)
Eight Norwegian medical students travel to a remote Arctic mountain for an Easter weekend filled with skiing and relaxation. One of them disappears while on a solo cross-country hike. The students are told by a mysterious resident that as World War II was ending, a battalion of Nazi soldiers disappeared into the very woods where their friend was last seen and zombies have been seen there.
“There is a fun house feeling to this movie,” Madrigale says. “There’s laughing and screaming. It’s fun.”
The evolution of horror
In looking at the evolution of horror movies, Madrigale goes back to the classic Universal pictures from the 1930s, like “Dracula” and “Frankenstein.”
“They were usually based on novels and skewed to an adult audience,” he says. “And there was always a romantic plot they had to service.
Things shifted gears in the 1950s.
“It was the drive-in period. The films had lower budgets and the main characters were teenagers with hot rods and pompadours,” he says.
And don’t forget the atomic bomb. In movies like “The Deadly Mantis,” “Them” and “Monster from Green Hell,” a creature got radiation poisoning and grew to a massive size, destroying everything around it.
Christopher Lee and Vincent Price worked steadily in the 1950s and 60s. Their films were often soaked in rich, garish colors, and there was blood.
Then in the late 1960s, “Night of the Living Dead” came along.
“It was filmed in Pittsburgh, it had a low budget and it was terrifying,” Madrigale says about the famous zombie movie by George Romero.
“It killed off the idea of horror movies being strictly for teens. And it started an explosion of low-budget horror movies.”
"Friday the 13th: Part 3"
In the 1980s came the series, “Friday the 13th,” “Halloween” and “Nightmare on Elm Street.”
“They were slasher movies and a new one came out every other week,” Madrigale says.
“Blair Witch Project,” released in 1999, was a huge influence. Found footage, a shaky camera and scary storytelling became quite popular.
These days, paranormal activity is big, with haunted houses and dark forces.
Madrigale says an interesting cross section of people come to Fright Nights.
“I’d say we’re 60 percent women and 40 percent men,” he says. “It’s really fun, everyone has a really good time.”
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