This past Friday I drove three hours from Virginia to New Jersey to watch a movie. Most people I talk to don’t quite understand why I do this every month or two.
Here’s the deal — the great guys at Exhumed Films rent out the Harwan Theatre, a movie theater that hasn’t changed since the early 1970’s, and show old horror and cult films on the big screen. The first show of theirs I went to was about a year ago: a double feature of Zombie and The Howling (this past Friday night they showed Phantasm and Equinox. Since then, I’ve made it to almost every showing they’ve had.
At this point, it’s become a great ritual. I brave the traffic on the DC Beltway and drive up to exit 31 on 295 in NJ to pick up my friend from high school at the Woodcrest PATCO station. We then head back south on 295 to exit 28 and grab dinner at the Black Horse Diner and walk back down the street to the Harwan. The movies start about 11pm and run until 2:30am. Before the movies, they also do a drawing and give away a number of prizes, like videos, t-shirts, and collectibles (this past visit was my first lucky one where I won one of the new Exhumed Films t-shirts). Joseph Gervasi of Bizarre Videos (and one of the three guys who run Exhumed) also hocks his wares (videos dubbed from foreign laserdiscs) before the show and usually gets a nice piece of change from me.
I don’t think it’s that hard to see why I’d drive up 3-4 hours on Friday night only to come back home the next day: I get to see 2 movies on the big screen that are infinitely more entertaining than anything showing in the local cinemas, I get to hang out with a friend from high school that lives in Philly, and I get to hang out with my family for a few hours. Seems reasonable to me. 🙂 -ram
Posted in Television, Movies, and Music