CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)
B&W, 2-D presentation
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Doors: 6:30p
Screening: 7:00p

Tickets are limited to ONLY 50 attendees and are available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/film-screening-creature-of-the-black-lagoon-tickets-1997635059237?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true.

• $15 GA Presale
• $10 Student Presale (Use code STUDENT at checkout)
• $10 IMSS Member Presale (Use code IMSSMEMBER at checkout)

At Door

• $20 at Door
• $15 Student at Door
• $15 IMSS Member at Door

International Museum of Surgical Science
Hall of Immortals
1524 N. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois

GILLINOIS WELCOMES HOME THE CREATURE:
CHICAGO’S INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF SURGICAL SCIENCE CELEBRATES ITS 72ND BIRTHDAY WITH
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

On September 10, 2026, the Gillman returns for an intimate, one-night-only screening
of Universal’s 1954 black and white classic in beautifully restored digital 2-D

CHICAGO, GILLINOIS , August 11, 2026 — On September 9, 2026, Chicago’s International Museum of Surgical Science is turning 72 — and it is celebrating this milestone in tandem with another remarkable entity from the Class of 1954.

On Thursday, September 10, join Chicago film curator Stephanie Sack in the Museum’s Hall of Immortals for an intimate, one-night-only presentation of Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), as GILLINOIS welcomes home the Gillman for his and the Museum’s 72nd birthday party.
And this is a birthday the two were almost destined to share.

The International Museum of Surgical Science opened its doors to the public on September 9, 1954. Earlier that same year, Universal introduced moviegoers to another extraordinary specimen: the Gillman.

The Museum opened in 1954. The Creature surfaced in 1954.

Seventy-two years later, they are spending their birthday together in the Hall of Immortals.

The setting could hardly be more appropriate.

Occupying a singular place in movie history as the last great original addition to Universal’s classic monster pantheon, the Gillman arrived after Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man had already emerged from the Gothic nightmares of earlier decades.
The Creature belonged to a different age. He wasn’t supernatural. He wasn’t resurrected. He wasn’t cursed.

He was biological.

Discovered by scientists and presented as a living evolutionary mystery, the Gillman is a monster conceived through anatomy itself. He is bipedal, with paired limbs, articulated hands, forward-facing eyes, and an unmistakably humanoid body plan. Yet dermal scales, webbed extremities, dorsal fins, and functional gills place that familiar form within an entirely different biological order.

Much of this resulting unease came from artist Milicent Patrick. Her exacting design makes the Gillman disturbing not because he is wholly alien, but because he remains tantalizingly recognizable. The human body is still there beneath the amphibious adaptation, close enough to identify but impossible to classify. The horror lies partly in our inability to decide exactly where the human ends.

Which makes the International Museum of Surgical Science an almost absurdly perfect place to encounter him.

In a museum devoted to anatomy, medicine, and humanity’s centuries-long effort to understand the body, Creature from the Black Lagoon poses a wonderfully uncomfortable question:

What happens when science discovers a body it cannot classify?

The scientists in the film want to observe the Creature, study him, understand him — and inevitably possess him. The Gillman becomes not simply a monster, but a specimen: a living challenge to the boundaries between human and animal, ancient and modern, discovery and intrusion.
He also arrived during one of the great years in monster history.

In 1954, two radically different creatures surfaced on opposite sides of the Pacific. Japan gave the atomic age Godzilla, a towering nightmare manifested from the darkness of nuclear destruction. America gave it a strange biological sibling: the Gillman, an ancient survivor thrust into the modern world by scientific curiosity.

One embodied the terror of what humanity had created. The other asked what might already be waiting for us to discover.
And when the Gillman first arrived, he arrived with a bang.

Creature from the Black Lagoon was shot in black-and-white 3-D, a sensational format for introducing a monster whose world existed beneath the surface. The Creature could swim toward the audience, reach into the theater and seemingly collapse the distance between his lagoon and the movie house.

It was a fantastic way to meet him — but it was far from the only way.

For generations of monster kids, and particularly for generations of Chicago monster kids , the Gillman was encountered in 2-D: on neighborhood screens, school events, and, perhaps most memorably, on television.

No glasses. No equipment. No gimmicks. Just the Creature.

By the 1970s, the Gillman was already swimming through Chicago’s extraordinary tradition of locally presented horror movies. Creature from the Black Lagoon appeared on WGN-TV Channel 9’s Creature Features, including a Saturday-night broadcast on May 31, 1975.

And in a bit of Chicago television history almost too perfect for this movie, WGN’s Creature Features did not rely on an on-camera horror host. The films were introduced by an eerie, disembodied voice known simply as “The Creature,” voiced first by longtime WGN announcer Carl Greyson and later by WGN newsman Marty McNeeley.

By the era in which Gillman was appearing on the program, McNeeley was the voice of The Creature.

The Creature introducing the Creature. On WGN. In Chicago.

The Gillman later migrated into another beloved Chicago monster tradition. Creature from the Black Lagoon can be documented on Rich Koz’s legendary Son of Svengoolie on WFLD Channel 32 by May 10, 1980, beginning another chapter in the long relationship between Chicago television and Universal’s amphibious monster.

“As a daughter of Chicago with a lifelong affection for creature features, television is where I first encountered the Gillman,” says Sack. “There is something very Chicago about growing up with these monsters coming into your house on local TV. So bringing the Creature back to the big screen, in the Hall of Immortals, for the birthday of a museum that entered the world the same year he did feels wonderfully full-circle.”

That history is also part of why the September 10 screening will be presented in beautifully restored digital 2-D.

Certainly, the film’s original format deserves its place in movie history. Creature from the Black Lagoon was photographed in black-and-white 3-D, and Chicago audiences have continued to experience the Gillman stereoscopically across generations, from a rare 35mm 3-D presentation at the Patio Theatre in 2013, with star Julie Adams herself in attendance, to a 3-D screening at the University of Chicago’s Doc Films as recently as 2024.

This evening at the Museum, however, celebrates another equally important part of the Creature’s afterlife: the Gillman generations of viewers first encountered in 2-D, flattened onto television screens in frunchrooms across Chicago. No flimsy glasses, complicated equipment, or added spectacle were necessary. The Creature was unforgettable all by himself.

Except this time, the television is gone. This is a small screening, for a small audience, inside one of Chicago’s most extraordinary rooms.

The Gillman slithers out of the television set to come ashore in GILLINOIS.

Guests will gather as daylight begins to disappear over the city. As the sun goes down, the Hall of Immortals will slowly be bathed in an eerie green glow, transforming the room into a temporary lagoon for the evening’s screening.

And seventy-two years after the Museum opened its doors and the Creature first surfaced, they finally celebrate their shared birthday together in the Hall of Immortals.

The post CHICAGO’S INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF SURGICAL SCIENCE CELEBRATES ITS 72ND BIRTHDAY WITH THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON appeared first on Dark Chicago.

From Zombie Army Productions/Yokai Films, producers of Days of the Living Dead, comes “The Fright Stuff“, a documentary that follows the life and times of the haunted attraction industry in the United States – the history, the people, the lasting imprint it’s had on the culture.

This event is FREE for convention attendees. Details and convention tickets at http://www.flashbackweekend.com!

The post Haunted House Documentary “The Fright Stuff” Playing at the Flashback Weekend Chicago Horror Con, 7/31 appeared first on Dark Chicago.

After her estranged mother goes missing, Brigid moves into the empty house where she was raised to believe she’s an ungrateful bitch. But the house isn’t at peace: a discarded portrait of Jesus keeps rehanging itself on the wall, a strange crow follows her everywhere, and Brigid keeps dreaming of Mammy, who says she’s killed Brigid’s actual mother and stuffed her into a closet. To survive, she’ll need to ignore what Mammy and her chronic-pain doctors have always told her: that her perception of reality can’t be trusted.

Grace Daly (she/her) is a disabled horror, fantasy, and sci fi author who lives near Chicago with her pets. She spends most of her free time with her dog, who is a very good boy. Her fantasy novella, The Star of Kilnaely, is forthcoming in 2026. She can be found at https://gracedalyauthor.wordpress.com.

More information on THE SCALD-CROW is available at https://creaturehorror.com/books/the-scald-crow.

The post The Scald-Crow Book Launch and Author Signing appeared first on Dark Chicago.

This unique production was created by Minneapolis composer/conductor Philip Shorey. It features a symphony mixed with choral musicians, modern electronic music, a rock n’ roll light-show, and campy haunted house effects.

Shorey has been performing his original works with popular silent films (Nosferatu & The Kid), giving them new life for modern audiences across Europe and North America. Come celebrate the 100-year anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera this Halloween season with a modern score and excerpts from the original Faust Opera.

The Phantom of the Opera is most widely known for the Broadway musical, but long before that, French author Gaston Leroux wrote the novel in 1909. The silent film is the original adaptation of the novel that inspired the hit Broadway musical.

Experience a spooktacular evening with the original adaptation of this timeless classic. Feel free to come dressed in your best masquerade 1920’s attire.

TICKETS: General Admission Tickets: $27.82 (Doors 7:30 pm, Show 8:00 pm)

LOCATION: Wilson Abbey, 935 W Wilson Ave, Chicago, IL 60640 (Enter through Everybody’s Coffee)

PARKING: Metered street parking and local garages. Metropolis Weiss Hospital Parking (4652 N Clarendon Ave), & Parkwhiz Sheridan Plaza (960 W Wilson Ave.)

CTA: Wilson Red Line Stop

For event information, contact us at phantom100chicago@gmail.com

The post The Phantom of the Opera Silent Film with Live Orchestra appeared first on Dark Chicago.

Seats are first-come, first-served and the event is likely to be at capacity, so don’t wait and don’t delay!

One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the night again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.

Note: Upon entering the theater, contestants will be required to show ID and fill out a waiver for participation. A tie breaker will be determined if more than one contestant completes the whole challenge. Full rules and details below. Must be 18 and up to enter and attend the screening. Winner must be a legal resident of the United States.

Screening Parameters:

• Attendees will only be allowed to have bathroom breaks during certain pre announced intermissions. If participants leave theater for any reason other than an emergency, contestants will be automatically disqualified.
• Absolutely no sleeping will be allowed, if found sleeping for any length of time contestants will be automatically disqualified.
• Cell phone usage (phone call or text) is not permitted while film is on screen.
• Last person or persons standing will have chance to win $5,000 grand prize. If tie occurs, a tie-breaker will be executed from screening host (i.e. a trivia contest)

INSTAGRAM: untildawnmovie
FACEBOOK: UntilDawnMovie
TIKTOK: @untildawnmovie" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@untildawnmovie
WEBSITE: untildawn.movie
#UntilDawnMovie

The post FREE SCREENING of Until Dawn with a Chance to Win $5K, Tuesday 4/22/25! appeared first on Dark Chicago.

Legendary director David Cronenberg will be in attendance for a post-film Q&A on Friday April 25th at 8pm and Saturday April 26th at 2:30pm after his new film “The Shrouds”.

Tickets on sale for Music Box Members Friday March 28th at Noon.

Tickets on sale for the General Public Monday March 31st at Noon, if available.

The post David Cronenberg presents “The Shrouds” at the Music Box Theatre, April 26 and 27, 2025 appeared first on Dark Chicago.

Windy City Paranormal Festival Brings the Strange & Unexplained to Chicago This Summer

Chicago, IL – June 12-15, 2025 – This summer, the supernatural takes center stage as Windy City Paranormal Festival (Windy City ParaFest) descends upon Chicago for four thrilling days of mystery, magic, and the macabre. Unlike any other paranormal event, Windy City ParaFest isn’t just about ghost hunting—it’s an immersive, social celebration of storytelling, history, and the wonderfully weird.

This 21+ festival, spanning some of Chicago’s best venues—including Untitled Supper Club, Comedy Bar, and Punch Bowl Social—invites guests to dive headfirst into a stacked lineup of eerie entertainment. From spine-tingling live storytelling and haunted bar investigations to a seductive supernatural burlesque show (BOO!-lesque) and the ultimate retro bash, “Haunted 80’s Prom,” there’s something for every seeker of the strange.

A Paranormal Lineup Like No Other

Windy City ParaFest assembles some of the most dynamic voices in the paranormal realm, with television personalities, podcast hosts, psychics, artists, and paranormal investigators leading the charge. Featured guests include:

• Adam Berry (Kindred Spirits, Ghost Hunters, Goodbye Hello), hosting Paranormal Pictionary

• John E.L. Tenney (Unsolved Mysteries, Ghost Stalkers, What’s Up Weirdo?)

• Heather Taddy (Paranormal State, Alien Highway, Travel the Dead)

• Jessica Knapik (What’s Up Weirdo? Podcast)

• Nicole Launius & Noëlle Kruppa (Quite Unusual Podcast)

• Ken Boggle (Living for the Dead)

• Tammie Merheb-Chavez & Brice Mitchell Williams (Hollyweird Paranormal Podcast)

• Robyn Valentine & Maria (Coffee and Cauldrons Podcast)

• Z Thee Witch (FearHQ, Around the Cauldron Podcast)

• Julia Halina Hadas (Witchcraft Cocktails)

• Joshua Dairen (Dairenormal, Paranormal History Researcher)

• Tawney Lewis (Scariest Places)

• Rockette Fox (Liminal TV)

• ParaPeculiar (Museum of Haunted Items)

… and many more.

Step Into the Unknown

Windy City ParaFest takes a new and inclusive approach to paranormal exploration, blending investigative curiosity with a deep respect for the histories, cultures, and stories behind the supernatural. With a mission to amplify underrepresented voices in the field, the festival prioritizes historical accuracy, ethical paranormal research, and diverse perspectives in the community.

A portion of the proceeds from Windy City ParaFest will be donated to Greater Than Hate, a coalition of the nation’s leading human rights and equality organizations.

Can’t-Miss Festival Highlights:

• BOO!-lesque: A supernatural striptease soiree blending burlesque with the bizarre.

• Paranormal “Pictionary” with Adam Berry: Test your supernatural drawing skills in this lively, interactive game night.

• Haunted 80’s Prom: A high school dance from the beyond, hosted by Nicole & Noëlle from Quite Unusual Podcast.

• Happy Witching Hour: A networking mixer for spirits (both kinds).

• Lore Storytelling Panels: Dive into terrifying true tales with expert storytellers.

• Live Podcast Recordings: See your favorite paranormal podcasters in action.

• Paranormal Investigations of Chicago’s haunted bars.

• Cemetery Walk at historic Graceland Cemetery.

• A spooky art show & curated vendor market featuring oddities, art, and occult creations.

Secure Your Spot—If You Dare

Tickets for Windy City ParaNormal Festival are on sale now for the ultimate eerie experience. Whether you’re a seasoned investigator or just paranormally curious, this festival offers four days of supernatural fun, unearthly entertainment, and unforgettable encounters.

Follow @windycityparafest for updates, announcements, and glimpses into the unknown.

Website: www.windycityparafest.com

The post Windy City Paranormal Festival appeared first on Dark Chicago.

This February, the Music Box & The Horror House host two nights of debauchery with actor BILL MOSELEY in person! On February 4th, catch THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2, and on February 5th, it’s a 35MM screening of HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES! Get Tickets Now: musicboxtheatre.com/coming-soon.

Bill Moseley will be on-hand for a Q&A after the show and a meet and greet starting at 6:00 pm both nights!

Co-presented by The Horror House.

The post Horror Icon Bill Moseley Hosts Two Movie Nights at the Music Box Theatre appeared first on Dark Chicago.

“Get into the holiday spirit with us at the Logan Theatre! We’re presenting a special screening of the holiday classic GREMLINS on Friday, December 13 at 11 pm, but you should definitely join us in the lobby starting at 8pm for a pre-party complete with activities, photo ops, and more! Get tickets for the movie here: https://58699.formovietickets.com:2235/T.ASP?WCI=BT&Page=PickTickets&SHOWID=44055&PLACEID=8 (the pre-party is free to attend)”

The Logan Theatre: 2646 North Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647, 773-342-5555

The post Friday the 13th Screening of GREMLINS at the Logan Theatre appeared first on Dark Chicago.

Hey Boos and Ghoulies! It’s almost Halloween Night! Perfect timing for a SCARY GODMOTHER PARTY!

Wear you most glamorous Witchy Attire or you favorite Monster Costumes! Bring the kiddos because this is an All Ages Event! You get An Exclusive New Art print! Stickers! A Screening of The Scary Godmother! Plus a Q&A with Scary G Creator Jill Thompson! A Raffle for A Plush Bug-A-Boo Backpack and a Scary Godmother Doll! Treats!

Location
Davis Theater
4614 N. Lincoln
Chicago, IL 60625

Date & Time
October 30, 2024
7:00 pm – 9:30 pm CT

Tickets: https://scarygodmotherparty.tripleseattickets.com/registration/select

The post It’s a Scary Godmother Party at the Davis Theater on October 30th! appeared first on Dark Chicago.