Tuesday of terror and strange Wednesday Back to the Alamo! Sorry for that exclamation mark, Citizen, but we’re thrilled – Screens

It’s true, perhaps rabid moviegoers: after 19 months of absence, the Alamo Drafthousethe legendary genre film series Tuesday of Terror and Weird wednesday should return next month to Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

Tuesday of Terror is back October 5 with A nightmare on TV Street, and Weird wednesday follows October 6 with compilation of images found The Lost & Found video mix.

And so the series will continue every week – Yes! – with all the mind-boggling on-screen pleasures and culturally dense camaraderie of joint film viewing among the non-virtual, in-person, and real audience of the Meat Space.

You remember, don’t you? Like in the days before?

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, like we’re trapped in some fucking time-looped thriller or whatever. What are those first nights back with, exactly?

Terror Tuesday will be animated, as before, by Joe ziemba, longtime TT programmer (and creative director of American Genre Film Archives). And Weird Wednesday will be presented by Laird Jimenez, longtime WW programmer who is also responsible for video at Alamo Drafthouse.

“I’m doing an exclusive mixtape called A nightmare on TV Street“says Ziemba, who has been very busy researching, mixing and splicing. Scars, one imagines: scars on the man’s nimble fingers.” Everything is put together specifically for Terror Tuesday, “says it, “and it’ll never be shown again. It’s a collection of some of my favorite episodes of TV horror shows from the ’80s and’ 90s, put together in one mixtape with commercials and other fun stuff.

“Like Joe, I do a mixtape,” says Jimenez. ” I present The lost and found video evening – which Joe also cut together. And that is, ah, anyone who went to independent video stores in the late 90s or early August has probably seen these DVDs called Lost and found video evening, it was compilations of footage found cut together by this guy in Atlanta. So it’s, you know, James Brown leading the way on CNN, it’s Siskel and Ebert shooting each other, it’s random clips from movies made for TV, random musical performances that this guy saw and had. said: ‘I’m going to put this beside this and make these wonderful compilations. ‘ They were clandestine cassettes which were the subject of exchanges, diffused by Five minutes to live, and Vulcain video used to wear them. For people like me, who love the images found, it was like the holy grail. They kind of set the tone for everything that followed, like Everything is horrible and Televised carnage – all these people doing stuff after those Lost found the tapes existed. So Joe took ten volumes of this series and condensed into one Best Of, and that’s what we start Weird Wednesday with.

This is what the Alamo is starting with, yes – the week following that of this year Fantastic party, nothing less – and then of course keep on going, encouraged in their terrible and relentless machinations by the Austin-based film’s vast film backgrounds American Genre Film Archives.

And, yes, you can get tickets here: For Tuesday of Terror … and for Weird wednesday.

So that’s a good thing, and now our work here is done. Except –

I just had one last thing to ask these guys, before I end the interview. I had to ask them, ‘Hey, Joe and Laird, this whole COVID problem we’ve been facing, right? Have you all, being fans of genre films, have you noticed resonance between everyone’s pandemic situation… and one of your favorite movies? “

Crickets.

“Ah, well, sure,” Jimenez admitted, after that slight hesitation. “You got things like, ah, Mafu’s cage and The bitter tears of Petra van Kant. Sure. Everything that is, like, characters in one place, sort of losing their minds. “

“Characters in one place,” he says, “sort of lose their minds”.

Sounds a bit like the Terror Tuesdays and Weird Wednesdays crowd, doesn’t it?

And long as they thrive.

To note: These beloved shows return just in time for the release of Warped & Faded: Strange Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archives. Written by Lars nilsen and a host of champions of the genre and edited by Kier-La Janisse, Warped and faded tells the story of the “Old West Days” of the Weird Wednesday and AGFA film series. The comprehensive and beautifully crafted book, available November 16, 2021, can be pre-ordered now.