Director Michael Dougherty in person for a post-film Q&A!

Equally funny and frightening, Trick ‘r Treat captures the spirit of Halloween through four intertwined stories set on the same block. Horny virgins, homicidal school principals, crotchety old men, nosy kids, and a sack-hooded hellraiser named Sam rub shoulders on All Hallows Eve, occasionally running afoul of the night’s traditions. This loving homage to such anthologies as Tales from the Crypt boasts superb production values and a solid cast including Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Dylan Baker.  – American Cinematheque

Preceded by “Season’s Greetings” (Dir. Michael Dougherty, 1996, 4 min, DCP)

On a late Halloween night, a young trick-or-treater on the hunt for candy discovers the dangers of staying out past midnight. Written and directed by Michael Dougherty (Trick ‘r Treat, Krampus, Godzilla: King of the Monsters), “Season’s Greetings” is the original animated short film that introduced the world to Sam, the mysterious trick-or-treater who would later become a modern horror icon. Created using traditional hand-drawn animation methods, the film unfolds like a dark holiday fable: playful, eerie, and quietly unforgiving. Now restored in 4K with remastered 5.1 audio for its 30th Anniversary, “Season’s Greetings” preserves the charm of its original 16mm presentation while inviting audiences to experience Sam as he first appeared.

The post SAM: The Soul of Halloween at the Music Box Theatre, October 15th appeared first on Dark Chicago.

FULL DETAILS & TICKETS: https://chicagovampball.com

On Oct 9th, 2026, enjoy Chicago’s wildest night of bloody, live entertainment featuring the Chicago Vampire Queen / King Competition and a live DJ afterparty event! One vampire candidate will become the Chicago Vampire Queen or King and your vote can make it happen!

Event patrons enjoy…

• The Chicago Vampire Queen / King competition, featuring Bunny Belladonna, Secret Mermaid, Winona Biter, Sebastian Cox and Sin Ryder!
• $ 200 Patron Costume Contest for the best dressed vampire!
• Burlesque entertainment by the sultry vamps of BimBamBoom!
• Live entertainment by Aerial Destinations!
• Retro vampire films & Horror Film Trailers!
• Unlock mysteries with live tarot card readings!
• Fully staffed impact play space in a hidden location , hosted by Untethered Kink!
• Live bat appearances by our friends at the Flying Fox Conservation Fund!
• Nyotaimori stations, offering both sweet and savory options, served atop submissive human servants.
• Live-model blacklight bodypainting display by Chicago, superstar artist, Kiki Painmaker!
• Live tarot card readings by Mistress of Mystery, Mazurka Wojciechowska!
• Ghost Poems transmitted by Rathumus Le’Sange!
• Full bar service throughout the event.

And other Dark Delights! (Check back for regular entertainment updates!)

General Admission ticket includes your admission to the event and one vote for Vampire Queen. Additional votes may be purchased at the bar or via a secret accomplice!

Vampire attire is required. Fangs will be checked. No weapons of any kind permitted onsite (even as costume accessories). No flames of any kind are permitted onsite. Patrons who touch others without clear consent will be banned without a refund.

All attendees must be 21 or older .

No refunds for any reason. Tickets may be transferred to other guests at no fee.

The post Chicago Vampire Ball 2026 appeared first on Dark Chicago.

Celebrate a Night of Love and Vampires with Improvised Jane Austen!

This October, Improvised Jane Austen swaps Darcy for Dracula! It’s time to celebrate the scariest season of all. Even the refined Jane Austen enjoyed sitting down with a spooky gothic novel (think Twilight, but with even MORE melodrama). Improvised Jane Austen presents Flirtations and Fangs, an improvised regency rom-com with everyone’s favorite love interest: vampires. Experience gothic elements blended with Jane Austen’s signature romantic comedy and social satire. Join us for a witty evening of fright with a little extra bite!

“…countless laughs…whimsical homage to the illustrious author.” — Chicago Reader

Improvised Jane Austen is a comedic ensemble that creates unscripted performances using Jane Austen’s tropes, themes, and language to craft a satirical romantic comedy set in Regency-era England. Playing in Austen’s world, Improvised Jane Austen’s stories delight 21st century audiences with a modern sense and sensibility. Come for the humor (and horror), stay for the heart!

“…[They] took it, owned it and created some really funny and touching moments … an evening of silliness and indulgence … make running amok look like delicious fun.” –PerformInk Chicago

Improvised Jane Austen currently performs Saturday nights at 6:00 pm at iO Theater. Since the group’s founding 15+ years ago, Improvised Jane Austen has performed throughout Chicago at theaters, festivals, and on the road at events such as C2E2, Detroit Women of Comedy Festival, Last Word Comedy Festival, The Floodwater Comedy Festival, and as the headliner at the SteelStacks Improv Comedy Festival. Throughout the show’s run, Improvised Jane Austen has been Chicago Reader Recommended, named a PerformInk Critics’ Pick, voted Best sketch/improv troupe 2019 in the Reader’s Best of Chicago, and was featured on WTTW playlist, in Time Out, the Chicago Tribune and on a their list of what to do on Valentine’s Day, on WGN’s Daytime Chicago in 2024 and 2026 and on CBS News Chicago.

 “…Improvised Jane Austen is one of the strongest improv troupes in the city. They have the ability to use Austen’s 19th century wit and sarcasm and make it recognizable for a 21st-century audience.” –Scapi Magazine

• Web – http://improvisedjaneausten.com
• Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/improvisedjaneausten
• Twitter – https://twitter.com/improvausten
• Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/improvausten/

When: 6:00 pm every Saturday evening, October 3rd through October 31st

Where: iO Theater, 1501 N Kingsbury St, Chicago, IL 60642

Tickets: $20 | ioimprov.com | Event: https://www.crowdwork.com/e/improvised-jane-austen

The post Flirtations & Fangs: A Comedy Event for the Halloween Season appeared first on Dark Chicago.

Anton Sucks, an award-winning, unproduced screenplay by Gabe Ozaki, is coming to life on stage this fall at the Annoyance Theater. The screenplay, a raunchy, queer, gothic, punk-rock romp with a coming-of-age beating heart, earned the Underrepresented Voices Award from the 2025 Cinestory Feature Retreat Contest.

The story follows a pubescent vampire who discovers he can only drink the blood of a romantic partner, and his crush on a village boy that forces him to question his desire to live up to his conservative father’s expectations. Fans of What We Do In The Shadows, The Addams Family, Call Me By Your Name, or even Shrek will find lots to love on this stage.

‘I’m ecstatic beyond words to have the opportunity to finally share this world with an audience. It’s undoubtedly absurd, but also sneakily tender. Plus, our cast is an absolute riot and I can’t wait to watch the fun that they’re having onstage bleed into the crowd,’ Ozaki states.

Adapted for the stage by Ozaki and his fellow producer and director, Hannah Eisendrath, this production takes a more comedic approach to the screenplay given the Annoyance’s reputation as a tour de force comedy theater. Rounding out the producing team is Izacc Quisling, an experienced marketing, creative direction, and PR professional.

‘I’ve never worked on something that sells itself so easily. The show has heart, jokes, and a story we can all find a piece of ourselves in. Anton may suck, but this show really sinks its teeth in.’

Gabe Ozaki stars as Anton, alongside an ensemble of Chicago comedy talent: Hannah Rose Kramer, William Rushman, Zo Rolack, Cameron Cai, Danny Sabo, Sam Neel, Avery Thompson, Tim Merkle, and Fran Bixby will all hit the Annoyance Mainstage this October to make audiences laugh…until they die!

Get your tickets now at https://theannoyance.thundertix.com/events/270517

The post ANTON SUCKS to Make World Premiere at Chicago’s Annoyance Theater appeared first on Dark Chicago.

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)

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FACEBOOK: UntilDawnMovie
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WEBSITE: untildawn.movie
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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.