Night Nurse screens Oct. 2 as part of the Friday Night Weird film series at the Dairy Arts Center. Courtesy: Independent Film Company
Looking for a break from your standard multiplex fare this spooky season? In case you somehow don’t already know, the fine freaks at Friday Night Weird are here for you.
Whether you’re in the market for arthouse vibes, internet-brain weirdness or a fresh twist on a disturbing classic, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to scratch that cinematic itch this month at the Dairy Arts Center’s year-round underground film showcase.
“October can be kind of a weird time for a program like this,” says the Dairy’s Shay Wescott. “Do you try to build around Halloween and compete with every venue showing familiar horror movie favorites, or do you go totally off the beaten path?”
“In this case, it’s not just that most of these are not traditional spooky season selections, they kind of transcend time and space: Night Nurse is a modern love letter to a certain kind of maligned erotic thriller lost to the ’80s; Begotten was tediously crafted to feel like a pre-cinema relic, while Girl Internet Show is a time capsule of the 2010s — somehow both trapped within and ahead of its time. Finally, in Serpent’s Path, Kiyoshi Kurosawa literally remakes his own movie in a different time and different place.”
The golden years ain’t what they used to be. That’s the case in Night Nurse, the twisted tale of a starry-eyed caregiver (Cemre Paksoy) who becomes entangled with a mysterious dementia patient (Bruce McKenzie) in an unnerving work by filmmaker Georgia Bernstein that “brings back the dirty pleasurable indulgence in something repulsive but highly attractive,” according to critic Jaylen Salah.
“It feels like a silver lining in this awful time that audiences are welcoming back some eroticism — and even better, eroticism that is feminine and queer and imperfect,” Wescott says. “Night Nurse is no exception. It’s genuinely perverse but entirely hypnotic; it’s Brian De Palma through a freaky female gaze.”
When the credits roll on Begotten, you’ll only see three names in its cast of characters: God Killing Himself, Mother Earth, and Son of Earth (Flesh on Bone).
Called “one of the most important films of modern times” by the late cultural critic Susan Sontag, this grotesque and disturbing work from E. Elias Merhige follows its three central figures in a depraved world that feels ancient and unknowable.
“On the completely other end of the spectrum [from Night Nurse], there is truly no joy, no beauty, and certainly no eroticism in Begotten,” Wescott says. “But drawing inspiration from the often horribly disturbing works of iconic 19th century painters like Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya, I dare you to say it’s not art.”
The surreal and singular work of late outsider video artist Kati Kelli gets the spotlight treatment in this showcase highlighting her YouTube “parasocial experiment” Girl Internet Show.
Described in press materials as an “epically deranged one-woman universe built from scratch in her bedroom,” this curated “mixtape” from filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma) and Jordan Wippell offers a smattering of the artist’s online work, unreleased videos and short-film opus, TOTAL BODY REMOVAL SURGERY.
“One thing about me is I will never shut up about Jane Schoenbrun,” Wescott says. “But even if you’re not on board with Jane as a singular voice in modern horror, one thing you have to give them: They understand the cultural vortex that is the internet.”
“It’s only fitting that Jane gives us this cinematic elegy dedicated to Kati Kelli, who fully embodies the indescribable, all-consuming everythingness of YouTube’s earlier days,” she continues. “She’s absurdist yet incisive, performative yet vulnerable, hilarious yet completely haunting.”
Revenge is a dish best served cold. Just ask Albert (Damien Bonnard), a freelance journalist who vows to avenge the murder of his daughter in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s gripping French remake of his own 1998 crime thriller, Serpent’s Path. Assisted in his quest by a doctor named (Sayoko), this 2024 refresh follows the pair in a bloody quest to exact revenge on an organ trafficking organization.
“This update is larger in scope and shifts tonally more towards horror than the original, but maintains some of the direct-to-video charm of the director’s roots,” Wescott says. “And it delivers on Kiyoshi’s signature atmospheric dread and bleak humor.”
