Apologies for my delay in getting The Friday Night Horror Movie out last night. For once I actually went to a movie theater and watched not one, but two horror movies. By the time I got back, it was late and I was too exhausted to write anything.

The Circle Cinema in Tulsa is one of my favorite places to see a movie. It opened in 1928 as a neighborhood movie house and ran as such until the late 1970s. By that time Tulsa had changed so much that the neighborhood wasn’t in much need of a neighborhood cinema and it closed its doors. Soon after it was purchased by another company and became a porno house.

In 1983 Francis Ford Coppola used it in his film The Outsiders. Then it closed its doors for a long time until reopening as an arthouse theater in the early 2000s. It has stayed as such ever since.

It does show some mainstream films, most likely to pay the bills, but its focus is on smaller-budget, foreign, and arthouse movies. It also does a lot of fun special screenings and events. I got to see James Ellroy give a talk before a screening of LA Confidential. They show Silent Movies on Saturdays with a live organ accompaniment. I’ve now seen four Dario Argento films there on a late-night showing.

I’ve always been a bit of a homebody. Covid has only intensified that aspect of my personality. I’ve come to realize I don’t go out nearly as much as I used to. I mean I was never one for clubbing or parties, but we did like to go to the park once and a while, or to fun local events. But over the last few years, we’ve mostly just stayed home and watched movies.

I’ve decided that 2025 is a year for change. I’m going to get out more. Do more fun things. Maybe meet some people. So when I learned that the Circle Cinema was doing a Dario Argento double feature last night I knew I needed to go.

They made it a fun event by calling it Splatter University. Before the films, they displayed a bunch of trivia about Argento, Giallo, and other horror films. The organizer gave a little talk before each film and at the end, they gave us a goofy little diploma.

Though I nearly fell asleep in the second feature (it didn’t start until after 10) I had a great time. They do these types of events pretty regularly and I hope to make it a habit.

The films, of course, are great. Opera is Dario Argento’s last great film. He’s made some decent films since then, but none of come close to the heights he reached at his peak. It is about a young opera singer (Christina Marsillach) who gets a chance to star in a production of Verdi’s Macbeth when the original lead singer gets into a terrible accident.

She is a great success, but soon enough a madman starts killing everyone she knows, often tying her up and making her watch in the process. In one of Argento’s great uses of violence, the killer tapes needles to her eyes forcing her to watch for if she blinks she’ll cut herself.

Made five years earlier Tenebrae stars Anthony Franciosa as an American writer of violent mysteries visiting Rome on a book tour. Soon enough someone starts killing people as a sick tribute to his latest novel, also called Tenebrae. (You can read my full review here.)

Argento is known for films with complicated, sometimes ridiculous plots and these two are no exceptions. I’ve seen them both several times before but it was fun watching them with a crowd, laughing at some of the sillier moments. But what the director lacks in plot cohesiveness he more than makes up for in style. Seeing these films on the big screen was enormously satisfying.

I’d previously watched Argento’s Suspiria and Deep Red at the Circle Cinema and I hope they’ll continue showing his films in the years to come.