Vienna In September: Be Prepared To Hear Somebody Scream In A Cinema Near You

Again, going to a cinema in Vienna in September might turn out to be a pretty bloody and scary experience. Not only does the Slash Filmfestival with its never ending love for the excesses of fantastic cinema lure the inclined cinephile but also the Austrian Filmmuseum opens after its summer break with another program dedicated to Horror.

The retrospective Land of the Dead covers Horror films from a time when the genre evolved into full bloom: 1968 to 1987. Last year the Filmmuseum has covered the first 50 years of horror and now they will show among many films the defining milestones of the genre.

Not only George A. Romero's game changer Night of the Living Dead will be projected in marvelous 35 millimeters but also classics like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining in the longer US-version, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by Tobe Hooper or Brian De Palma's Carrie will run from August 29 on.

After the Production Code was abandoned in 1967 the way in Hollywood was free for violence to hit the screen. But there is more to the genre than its famous American interpretations. The Filmmuseum also casts an eye on the more psychological aspects of horror like in Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf or Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. The horror in those films creeps between the scenes, one can never quite catch it.

Don't Look Now is also part of the bigger attention the retrospective gives to British Horror. After the BFI in London launched a Gothic offensive last year, there will be another chance to witness British love for dangerous and fantastic cinema. Among them shines The Devil Rides Out by Terence Fisher and the celebrated picture The Wicker Man by Robin Hardy.

But there won't be something like a Horror retrospective without the masters of the 1970s like Dario Argento (Suspiria and Deep Red), John Carpenter (Halloween) or Mario Bava (A Bay of Blood). It is in those works that the heart of modern horror still beats in all its immediacy and physicality.

A sad but remarkable side note shows how personal the program speaks about the recent story of the Filmmuseum and its ongoing fight for cinema: Four friends of the institution and/ or admired artists died during the last couple of months: Michael Glawogger, Robert Gardner, Robert Drew and Harun Farocki.

During the summer break a moving quote by famous German playwright Heiner Müller graced the entrance: "It is a mistake to think that the dead are dead". By carrying on the flame of cinema and especially by presenting the realms of the undead, the beauty of horror will transform itself in something which does not only shock the audience but stays with them, just like those great artists and their films: Cinema.

The program includes 42 works and will run from August 29 to October 15.