Midnight Mayhem / Double Feature: REEFER MADNESS (1936) + FREAKS (1932)

REEFER MADNESS aka Tell Your Children (1936)

• Director: Louis J. Gasnier
• Cast: Dorothy Short, Kenneth Craig, Lilian Miles, Dave O’Brien
• Film: 65mins | USA | No Subtitles

FREAKS (1932)

• Director: Tod Browning
• Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles
• Film: 62mins | USA | Subtitles
• Event: 20:45 – 23:10 [18+]

Two classic exploitation films for the price of one ticket!

Cult film night BAR TRASH continues with CELLULOID JAM, an unofficial celebration of 50 years of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975).

Richard O’Brien and Jim Sharman’s THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW is one of the few films to have found a genuine crowd at midnight film screenings, amplified massively by the fan clubs and shadow casts that brought their repeat screenings to life from the late 1970s onwards.

Our Midnight Mayhem / Double Feature presents two other movies that found their own returning audiences on the NYC midnight movie circuit [but don’t worry, our show starts at 8:45pm!].

REEFER MADNESS (1936/65mins) is a classic exploitation title that both wags its finger in warning of the dangers of marijuana and titillates the same curious crowd. 

“The more we discover about the exploitation genre, the more we learn the true hepcats were the ones who made the films: ruthless opportunists who produced raunchy, ribald melodramas loaded with sex, drugs and violence… wrapping them in a tissue-thin pseudo-educational message.”

Something Weird

FREAKS (1932/62mins) is Tod Browning’s masterpiece story of the outcast, a film deemed so shocking it was banned in Britain for decades and the most transgressive film produced by any major American studio in the 1930s.

“Received with revulsion by viewers upon its initial release, FREAKS permanently damaged Browning’s career but can now be seen for what it is: an audacious cry for understanding and a singular experience of nightmarish, almost avant-garde power.”

Criterion Collection

Polite notice: Our films contain depictions of drug dependency, sexual violence, suicide, physical disability, and difference that were all radical for their era. We are showing REEFER MADNESS without subtitles from the best available digital source restored from 35mm elements (it still looks rough…). We are showing the recent 2K restoration of FREAKS from the best available digital source (it looks sublime!). REEFER MADNESS + FREAKS will screen with an introduction for each film and one interval.

// Part of BAR TRASH: CELLULOID JAM, a fan-powered celebration of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. Hosted by queer film fanatic Token Homo (creator of BAR TRASH and QUEER HORROR NIGHTS) and friends, all films screen with an introduction, intermission, and subtitles/captions (where possible!). Tickets from £3.50. Adults 18+ only. Follow @tokenhomo on Instagram for news and updates. //