Perhaps because Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, the South Fork’s cultural institutions have organized a bunch of movies and dance parties aimed primarily (though not exclusively) at adults.
The Church kicks things off in Sag Harbor with its Spooky-Palooza dance party and costume contest Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. The evening will include complimentary food tables, a cash bar, and dance music from D.J. Henry Eau. A grand prize will go to the best costume, but showing up is the only way to find out what that prize might be. Another incentive? All dance party ticket holders will receive one free spooky spritzer at the Sag Harbor Cinema’s Green Room either before or after the dance party.
All proceeds from Spooky-Palooza will benefit The Church, Bay Street Theater, and the Sag Harbor Cinema. Single tickets to the dance party are $90; group tickets are $75 per person.
Not to be outdone, Guild Hall will host a Halloween silent disco dance party Friday evening from 7 to 10 in its outdoor garden. There will be three channels of music to choose from, including disco and funk from Mister Lama, Latin tracks from D.J. Divina, and pop songs courtesy of Schvitz-a-Lot. ZiggaSun will arrive at 9 for an hour of hip-hop classics and deep cuts.
Headphones will be provided, costumes have been encouraged, and prizes will be awarded courtesy of Moby’s. Cocktails and snacks will be available from the coffee cart in the garden. Tickets are $25.
Friday's dance party trifecta also includes the Southampton Arts Center, starting at 7, with three-channel LED-style headphones from Quiet Events. Each channel has a color, so dancers can see what others are listening to based on the color of their headphones.
Of course costumes have been encouraged, and the contest will be judged by Gianna Volpe, the host of Heart of the East End on WLIW-FM radio. Tickets are $20, $15 for members, $5 for children 12 and under, and $25 at the door.
Things take a frightening turn on Saturday at 6 p.m. when the Sag Harbor Cinema will screen “Frankenstein,” the 1931 classic directed by James Whale and starring the inimitable Boris Karloff. It remains, according to the cinema, “one of the best monster films ever made,” citing dramatic lighting influenced by German Expressionism and Jack Pierce’s makeup.
“Frankenstein” will feature a live solo guitar score by Gary Lucas, who has a long career of scoring and accompanying both silent and sound films, among them Carl Dreyer’s 1932 “Vampyr,” the 1931 Spanish version of “Dracula,” and Luis Bunuel’s surrealist film “The Exterminating Angel.” Lucas has performed at the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris, the Venice Biennale, and the New York Film Festival, among others.
Tickets are $20.55, $17.50 for senior citizens and people with disabilities, and $16 for those 12 and under.
A very different film classic will unspool at the Bay Street Theater on Saturday evening at 8, when the theater will show “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” the 1975 musical comedy horror film starring Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Barry Bostwick at Brad Majors, Susan Sarandon as Janet Weiss, and Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff, a hunchbacked handyman.
While the reviews have been mixed — not that any midnight moviegoer cares — Geoff Andrew of Time Out said, “A string of hummable songs gives it momentum, Gray’s admirably straight-faced narrator holds it together, and a run on black lingerie takes care of almost everything else.”
The theater has encouraged vocal participation. Tickets are $25.99, $40.99 for two.
Sag Harbor’s Masonic Temple is hosting a Halloween costume and dance party on Saturday at 8 p.m., with music provided by the HooDoo Loungers. The East End party band will bring their blend of soul, rock, and bayou funk for the holiday, just as they did last October. Tickets are $25.
The weekend will end on a much lighter note, when as part of its Feel Good Films series, Guild Hall will host a free screening of Mel Brooks’s “Young Frankenstein” (1974) on Sunday at 7 p.m., presented with the Greater East Hampton Chamber of Commerce.
The comedy classic stars Gene Wilder as Dr. “Fronkensteen,” Peter Boyle as the Monster, Marty Feldman as Igor (in yet another parody of the hunchbacked assistant from the 1931 film), Cloris Leachman as the unforgettable Frau Blucher, Madeline Kahn as the doctor’s fiancée, and Teri Garr as his assistant.
