EL TOPO (1970)

• Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
• Featured gimmick: Midnight Movies!
• Cast: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky, José Legarreta
• Film: 124mins | Mexico | Spanish with English Subtitles | Intermission
• Event: 18:30 – 21:30 / Doors 18:00 [18+]
• Please note the change of day to Bank Holiday Monday

A mysterious gunfighter wanders a mystical Western landscape encountering multiple bizarre characters.

Token Homo’s cult film night BAR TRASH continues our 13th sensational season — SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES! — with the original midnight movie smash, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ‘acid-western’, EL TOPO (1970).

SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES! is all about taking cinema into the 4th dimension and there’s no more mind-warping gimmick than the midnight movie experience. Almost as old as cinema itself, midnight presentations were first used by exploitation film exhibitors to promote adult-only engagements, and then to harness the transgressive union that only happens amongst audiences after midnight.

Written, directed, scored by and starring Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, EL TOPO is the definitive midnight movie from the format’s 1970s resurgence in New York City, an outbreak of cinematic midnight mass that gave us FREAKS (rescued from obscurity as a counterculture cult hit in the 1960s), a twenty-five week run of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and, of course, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.

Ben Barenholtz launched his midnight screenings at the former Chelsea arthouse venue, The Elgin Cinema, having seen EL TOPO at a private screening at the Museum of Modern Art. Jodorowsky’s violent and notorious film opened at the Elgin on 18 December 1970 before playing 7 days a week, screening at midnight on weekdays and 1am on Fridays and Saturdays, until June 1971. Launched with very little fanfare, the film fulfilled Barenholtz’s belief that midnight screenings would “attract hipsters, encourage a sense of ‘personal discovery’, and stimulate word of mouth” (Midnight Movies, Hoberman & Rosenbaum), the benchmark for all midnight movie sensations ever since.

By January 1971, EL TOPO was doing “turnaway business”, with Barenholtz remembering “the limos lined up every night”, establishing both the film and its midnight residency as “a must-see item” and potent countercultural phenomenon. Seeing EL TOPO at midnight at the Elgin — with its ‘begrudging’ tolerance of drug use on the balcony and nightly parade of showboating celebrities in their finery — can never be repeated, but this era-defining film will still take you on a transformative odyssey with its nightmarish ultra violence, mind-bending mysticism, and awe-inspiring imagery.

Polite notice: We are showing EL TOPO in its original Spanish soundtrack with English subtitles. EL TOPO is rated ’18’ by the BBFC for ‘strong bloody violence’ and ‘nudity’. This is a radical artwork that is both violent, exhilarating, and unsettling. BE WARNED: EL TOPO IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. 

/// BAR TRASH is a celebration of cult and curious cinema, hosted by queer film fanatic Token Homo and friends. Films are served with introductions, intermissions, prize giveaways, and subtitles / captions where possible. Tickets from £3.50 + fees. Adults 18+ only. Follow @tokenhomo on Instagram for updates. ///