An exploration of terror and the fantastic from Northern Manhattan.  “Dimensions of Darkness” is a four-part series exploring the horror, science fiction and the fantastic, with a focus on filmmakers, writers and performers from or associated with the northern Manhattan and surrounding areas.  Curated and hosted by production and screening collective KHLOARIS and Inwood Art Works.

“The Stuff”(1985)  Genre filmmaker Larry Cohen was born in Washington Heights in 1941, and later relocated to nearby Riverdale. He was the writer-director of the horror films It’s Alive, God Told Me To, Full Moon High, Q, A Return to Salem’s Lot, among others. The Stuff is Cohen’s satirical sci-fi-horror-comedy about an organic dessert sensation, sold after it bubbles up from the ground, and later causes havok. We are pairing The Stuff with the short subject “The Haunted Mouth,” for an entire night of dental and dessert horror. In “The Haunted Mouth,” plaque is the evil spirit haunting a haunted house, meant to scare children into brushing and flossing. The short film is narrated by Cesar Romero of “Batman” fame. (Mr. Romero also did some of his schooling in Riverdale.)

From Edgar Allan Poe’s explorations of undeveloped northern Manhattan wilderness to H.P. Lovecraft’s documented walking tours of then-Inwood Forest (which Lovecraft described as “…a forest primeval, with winding paths, gigantic trees, and not a mortal in sight.”), the northern Manhattan area has been home to countless famous and unusual imaginations. The beginnings of the film industry were right across the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, where luminaries like famed magician Harry Houdini hung from the Palisades cliffs in early film serials; the origin of the term “cliffhanger”.

(Doors at 7:00pm) The Stuff and Dust Devil are both R-rated, and not suitable for children. Dracula and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park are either unrated or PG-rated. After each screening, we’ll hang out to connect and talk about the films.