
Fancy a drink? Cigarette Burns‘s monthly pub night is back on Monday, with a programme of occult horror. Top of the bill is Equinox, a 1970 American horror film that seems to be a sort of proto-Evil Dead, with a group of teenagers heading into a forest and stumbling across some very hostile demons.
However, we’re interested in the first course, which on this occasion is Körkarlen (1921), also known as The Phantom Carriage. This is a Victor Sjöström film, adapted from a novel based on a spooky legend that the last person to die in any one year, if they are suitably wicked, will have to spend a year driving the phantom carriage, picking up the souls of the dead. It’s a nasty business indeed, and should have you clutching your pint glass in terror.
This was Sjöstrom’s last Swedish film before he went to Hollywood, so if you’re going to see his The Wind at the BFI on Wednesday, you might like to watch this as a point of comparison. And to scare yourself silly, too.
The Cigarette Burns night is the Mucky Pup pub in Islington on the first Monday of every month. Körkarlen starts around 6.30pm, so get there nice and early. I hear there will be pizza.