It’s dark out there

WITH the nights drawing in, Shetland’s second Perpetual Darkness festival gets under way this Sunday with a special family matinee screening of Ivan Reitman’s hugely successful move Ghostbusters.

Festival curator Alex Wright believes Shetland’s long winters of howling winds and biting cold are the perfect setting for tales of horror.

“There’s something about the dark winter nights that makes people want to imagine spooky things lurking outside the window or under the bed,” he said.

“Shetland has a great storytelling tradition, and we feel that we’re in-keeping with that.”

The festival manifested last year after Wright and some friends were discussing the horror movies they would like to see in a cinema setting.

“We all felt that the cinema was made for horror, with its dark atmosphere, total immersion in the story, and, above all, the way the audience shares the experience.

“It was from this that we decided to actually screen these films so that everyone could experience them as they were meant to be experienced,” he recalled.

This winter season a total of four films (all cert.18) will be shown in addition to the family matinee on 27 October:

• 1 November – Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992) 
• 30 November – Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
 
• 21 December – The Thing (Dir. John Carpenter, 1982)
• 18 January – Ringu (Dir. Hideo Nakata, 1998) 

All films will be screened in the Shetland Museum, starting at 7pm; tickets (£5 for adults) at the door. 

Further information ia available at: www.facebook.com/PerpetualDarknessShetland