Fright Club screening and podcast allows moviegoers to share in love for the genre
On a chilly and stormy Friday night earlier this month, a group of horror movie fans gathered at the Gateway Film Center.
The movie being shown was fittingly frightful — the 1934 Universal Pictures classic “The Black Cat,” starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi — but the attendees weren’t just there for the flick.
The ticket-buyers who braved the weather were there to commemorate 10 years of Fright Club, a once-a-month presentation of horror movies — some well-known, many obscure — at the Gateway and created and hosted by Columbus film critics Hope Madden and George Wolf. Each Fright Club takes place on the second Friday of the month.
Ahead of each screening, Madden and Wolf — who are married and make their home in Grandview Heights — record a podcast with the paying audience in attendance. They talk about the movie itself as well as the larger category to which it might belong — for example, the top 5 feminist horror movies.
“We have a good group of regulars,” said Madden, 53. “A lot of them never miss (a Fright Club screening). At the end of last year, a number of people took photos of all 12 of their tickets from the previous year.”
Among the regulars who attended “The Black Cat” was Seth Vermaaten of Upper Arlington, who has been going to Fright Club screenings for six years.
“You get to go to a horror movie, you get to talk to people a little bit about movies, you get to hear about some of the other movies that are related or have a common theme that you can watch,” said Vermaaten, 44.
“The Black Cat” was shown and discussed in the context of the top 5 “unexpected guests” in horror movies. The movie’s plot involves a couple, played by David Manners and Jacqueline Wells, who turn up at the residence of an appropriately mysterious architect played by Karloff.
“It’s a really common horror movie trope,” Madden said. “Sometimes the guests are in peril; sometimes it’s the people in the house who are in peril.”
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At least two first-time Fright Club attendees were drawn to the event by the movie itself: Plain City couple Devon and Alexa Tomey.
“I just saw a post about it and I shared with (Devon) because I know he loves horror,” said Alexa, 37. “I thought, ‘This would be something that he loves and we can make a date night of it.’”
Devon was impressed that the movie would be shown in a 4K restoration.
“To see it the way it’s meant to be seen is nice,” said Devon, 38.
Madden and Wolf created Fright Club a decade ago with just that goal: to show interesting and offbeat horror movies in a big-screen environment. Both describe themselves as fans of the genre — big fans.
“For me, (horror movies) are my favorite thing, ever,” she said. “It’s like comfort food. ‘Ugh, I’m not feeling very well — what am I going to do? I’m going to lay on my couch and watch ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre.’”
In January 2014, the earliest incarnation of the screening series was launched at Studio 35 Cinema and Drafthouse. Back then, the movies were shown once a month at midnight and there was no podcast component.
“The audience that came enjoyed it,” Madden said of the inaugural screening. “Unfortunately, we coincided with a blizzard. (At) midnight Saturdays during blizzards, not that many people come out to see a movie.”
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Later that same year, Fright Club moved to the Drexel Theatre in Bexley and, in 2015, to the Gateway Film Center, where it has remained ever since. The live podcast recordings began after the screenings shifted to the Gateway. According to Madden, over 120 movies have been shown since then.
“It’s helped us, over the years, to build a community,” said Wolf, 59, referring to the benefits of producing a podcast at the screenings. “We definitely feed off the crowd.”
Before the screening of “The Black Cat,” Madden and Wolf raffled off awards-season movie memorabilia — they knew many of the winners by their first names — and then got down to business: discussing (and showing clips from) various horror movies that featured “unexpected guests.”
The duo didn’t share too much about the feature attraction, but plenty of discussion took place after the lights came back up. Audience members chimed in with their comments about everything from the set design to the two iconic stars, Karloff and Lugosi.
“We come back after the movie is over and fire up the (recording) equipment again and get people’s reactions to the film, which I work into the podcast,” Wolf said.
The audience’s knowledge of the genre — and keen interest in what was being shown — was evident.
The final versions of podcasts can be heard on Madden and Wolf’s website, www.maddwolf.com.
If the attendees earlier this month are any indication, Fright Club will be inducing scares — and conversations — for many years to come.
“What keeps me coming back is Hope and George — they are huge movie enthusiasts and really popular film critics,” said Clintonville resident Alex Samuels, 32. “Just hearing them discuss these films that they show us. . . . It gives me a chance to explore other movies from that genre.”
Plus, there are all those other attendees to talk horror with.
“It’s a really nice film community,” Samuels said.
At a glance
The next Fright Club screening of the 1971 Australian film “Wake in Fright” will take place starting at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 9 at the Gateway Film Center, 1550 N. High St. The podcast will focus on “Towns That Won’t Let You Leave.” Madden’s short film “Godspeed” will also be shown. Tickets cost $5. For more information, visit www.gatewayfilmcenter.org.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: The next Fright Club screening and podcast Feb. 9 at the Gateway
