AS OF JANUARY 15, PROOF OF VACCINATION WILL BE REQUIRED by order of the Salem Board of Health.
At present, Cinema Salem requires masks in all areas of the theater, unless you are eating or drinking in your theater seat. We will gladly give you a mask if you need one. Just ask at the counter.
Blasts from the Past
If you're one of the many who thank us when we program worthy films from earlier years, this week is for you. Our varied line-up should satisfy many tastes. There's the 1985 blockbuster BACK TO THE FUTURE. There are two sci-fi cult films, STARSHIP TROOPERS and John Carpenter's THE THING, Our Audrey Hepburn series continues with WAIT UNTIL DARK. And there will be a special benefit screening of LAKE PLACID in celebration of Betty White.
The films are presented a little out of sequence below, but how do you not start with Betty White?
Celebrating a century of Betty White LAKE PLACID, Sun., Jan. 16, 7 p.m.
Special $5 admission price, proceeds to be donated to Northeast Animal Shelter. Buy tickets
Betty White was born January 17, 1922. In the nearly 100 years she lived, she probably came as close to being universally beloved as any human can. Though she was better known for her TV roles than for movies, she did make it onto the big screen.
One of her most notable film roles was in the 1999 horror-comedy LAKE PLACID. The film may be unfamiliar to many (it was to this writer), but a bit of cursory reading suggests it's an intentionally cheesy thing with a good cast and quite funny if you're in the right frame of mind.
Betty White plays the supporting role of Delores Bickerman, an elderly widow who lives on the lake and has been feeding large animals (her dairy cows) to the giant crocodile that lurks in the waters ready to terrorize any who enter. The irony, of course, is that Betty White was a great lover of animals and famous for her support of animal welfare causes. We will donate proceeds from ticket sales for LAKE PLACID to the Northeast Animal Shelter.
The mere fact that LAKE PLACID got a New Yorker review by Anthony Lane surely gives it some credibility. He wrote, "This may be no more than a squib of a B movie, and it remains about as frightening as a fish tank, but, if you have any poetry in your soul, you will surely thrill to a film that ends with a crocodile sticking its head in a helicopter."
And now, we return to our normal chronoligical order.
If you're tired of 2022 already, climb into cinema's most famous DeLorean with Marty McFly and head back to 1955. Richard Guérin returns to Cinema Salem for a dive into Alan Silvestri's exciting score before a full screening of the film.
Choose your own companions and see a movie.
Rent one of our theaters. You pick the film. It may be less expensive than you think. Get information here.
Cult Sci-Fi Weekend
STARSHIP TROOPERS, Friday, 7:30 pm Buy tickets This film bombed when first released in 1997 but is now praised as stinging (or maybe biting — it's hard to know with bugs) political satire.
THE THING (1982), Saturday, 7:30 pm Buy tickets It's the John Carpenter version. What more do you need to know?
Coming at the end of her period of peak activity, where she mostly played comedic and romantic heroines, WAIT UNTIL DARK is a shocking and successful change of pace as Hepburn plays against type in this edge-of-your-seat thriller. As Susy, the blind wife of a photographer who is unwittingly entangled in a drug-smuggling plot, Hepburn faces off against a trio of violent con men led by a supremely creepy Alan Arkin.
Through its nail-biting climactic confrontation, limited in scope to a single apartment, WAIT UNTIL DARK channels classic thrillers like REAR WINDOW as well as more modern scares like Mike Flanagan’s HUSH.
As of January 15, 2022, all indoor entertainment venues in Salem, including movie theaters, will require proof of vaccination, by order of the Salem Board of Health.
