Do you live in or around NYC? Got a Shudder subscription? Do you like seeing horror movies early, in a theater, with special guests in attendance and free popcorn at your disposal? Are you familiar with Shudder’s devastatingly handsome and horror-obsessed VP of Programming, Sam Zimmerman, and do you wish to spend more time with him? Buddy, have we got news for you.
According to the press release we just received, Shudder is teaming up with the good folks at the IFC Center for a new “sneak screening series” they’re calling Shudder Showcase at IFC Center. This new monthly series will “serve up special advance screenings of some of Shudder’s most exciting and provocative upcoming titles,” offering “sneak preview screenings of some of the most talked-about genre films of the year in optimal conditions—on the big screen, in the company of fans.”
Hosted by the aforementioned Sam Zimmerman or a surprise guest, this series (which also provides free popcorn to Shudder subscribers) kicks off on Tuesday, August 15th at 7PM ET with an advanced screening of Stewart Thorndike’s Bad Things, with Thorndike in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.
For those unfamiliar with Bad Things, here’s a synopsis:
“When a group of friends escape the city to spend the weekend in an abandoned hotel, a pervading eerie energy begins to illuminate the cracks in their little family unit. Ruthie Nodd (Gayle Rankin) inherits the hotel from her grandmother and with bad childhood memories threatening to burst to the surface, Ruthie wants to sell the hotel and never return. But her partner Cal (Hari Nef) drags her there in the hopes of returning it to its former glory. They are joined by their amiable friend Maddie (Rad Pereira) and mysterious grifter Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), whose unhinged seduction threatens to drive a wedge between the couple. As the friends dance, cook, flirt, and fight up and down the halls of the hotel, they begin to find themselves indelibly entwined in the hotel’s seductive embrace and start doing bad things to each other.”
And that’s not all: Shudder Showcase at IFC Center has already announced their September screening, a Norwegian chiller by the name of Nightmare, for September 18th. Future titles will be added in the coming weeks, so do keep your eyes peeled for further updates on Shudder and IFC’s new series as they roll in.
