Flickers’ Vortex Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Film Festival: October 25–29

Flickers’ Vortex Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Film Festival opens at PPAC with the 1925 silent film classic Phantom of the Opera featuring live musical accompaniment by world-renowned organist Peter Krasinski. 

“Peter’s absolutely phenomenal,” says festival program co-director Shawn Quirk. “Everything he does is improvised;, it’s incredible. We did The Adventures of Prince Achmed with him and it was mind-blowing.”

Stage Fright: Halloween at PPAC kicks off at 5:30pm with a costume parade, trick or treating, and family entertainment. At 6pm there will be a showing of the Buster Keaton silent short The Haunted House, which Krasinski will also accompany on organ in the role of “narrator,”, and at 7pm The Phantom of the Opera begins.

“Someone said that about me in Montreal two years ago,” says Krasinski. “They said, ‘You’re the narrator.’ And I thought: That is the perfect description! I want to create different feelings without the audience going: He’s playing a dissonant chord. As a musician accompanying a film, I don’t want people to notice me, I want people to be in the film, to notice what’s going on on screen, and have the music support that.” 

In preparation for his role as narrator, Krasinski memorizes a movie in its entirety. 

“I have to get to know it and really digest it… When I watch a film, the images go into my eyes, go through my heart, and then the music comes out of my fingers and feet. It’s a very organic experience and what makes improvisation possible.”

Krasinski will play PPAC’s Mighty Wurlitzer – one of only three Wurlitzer theater pipe organs built with five keyboards and the only one left in its original condition. 

The rest of the Vortex Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Film Festival takes place at venues throughout the city,  and will feature over 50 titles in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres, as well as a retrospective screening of the cult classic Sleepaway Camp.

“I find the greatest part about horror is how people are reinventing the genre,” says Quirk. “There are a lot of antiquated tropes in horror and it’s fascinating when filmmakers play with and subvert those conventions and reinvent the genre as a whole; in terms of playing with gender roles, where you should be frightened, and playing with expectations in new and exciting ways,; that’s always the most fascinating.”

For more information on the free screening of Phantom of the Opera visit stagefright.eventbrite.com. For a complete festival schedule visit film-festival.org.   •

Film Festival runs October 25–29
October 22: Exclusive Motif preview screening at Revival Brewing
October 25: Stage Fright: Halloween at PPAC – FREE!