DUSK TO DAWN HORRORFEST & BOOK LAUNCH!
To say I am unbelievably excited about what is happening at The Midway Drive-In on Saturday, September 19th is an understatement.
This is going to be one hell of a night.
We’re talking about an honest-to-God dusk-to-dawn horror movie marathon at one of my favorite places in the world, featuring four of the greatest, funniest, scariest, craziest, and most entertaining horror movies of the 1980s.
There will be horror vendors, vintage trailers, old concession ads, merchandise, movies under the stars, and all kinds of other fun stuff throughout the night. I’ll be there hosting the entire thing and introducing the movies, as I’ve been lucky enough to do many times before at the Midway.
But this particular night means even more to me because it will also be the first official book launch event for my brand-new book, 40 Years, 40 Horror Films, from Eckhartz Press.
I cannot wait.
The Midway Drive-In in Dixon, Illinois, is owned and operated by my great friends Mike and Mia Kerz, who also run the Flashback Weekend Horror Convention. I have been involved with Flashback for about 25 years as a host, moderator, interviewer, and general horror-loving lunatic, and Mike and Mia are genuinely part of my horror family.
Whenever they put together one of these giant horror marathons at the Midway and ask me to host, I’m there.
And if you have never experienced a horror movie at a drive-in, especially an all-night horror marathon, you really need to do this.
The Midway is, without question, one of the best drive-ins in the Midwest.
There is something magical about watching horror movies outdoors on a giant screen as the night gets darker, the temperature drops, the fog starts rolling in (or at least you hope the fog starts rolling in) and everybody settles in for an entire night of monsters, vampires, werewolves, slashers, zombies, exploding heads, terrible decisions, and people wandering into places where you absolutely know they should not be wandering.
It’s the perfect way to watch horror movies.
And the lineup they’ve put together for September 19th is ridiculous.
We start with Fright Night, Tom Holland’s wonderful 1985 vampire movie, and we are showing it from a vintage 35mm print.
I love Fright Night. In fact, I love it so much that it is one of the movies featured in 40 Years, 40 Horror Films, which makes it the perfect movie to kick off the first official launch party for the book.
Fright Night is one of those movies that understands exactly how to balance horror and comedy without allowing one to destroy the other. William Ragsdale plays Charley Brewster, a teenage horror fan who becomes convinced that his charming new next-door neighbor Jerry Dandrige, played by Chris Sarandon, is a vampire.
Naturally, nobody believes him, so Charley eventually turns to washed-up horror movie actor and television host Peter Vincent for help. And Peter Vincent is played by the magnificent Roddy McDowall.
It is one of McDowall’s greatest performances. He is funny, touching, cowardly, heroic, and completely lovable, and the character is one of the reasons Fright Night has endured. Tom Holland directed the hell out of this movie.
It’s funny when it needs to be funny, scary when it needs to be scary, sexy, atmospheric, beautifully designed, and loaded with fantastic practical effects. Seeing it projected from 35mm at a drive-in is going to be an absolute treat.
Then we move on to John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London from 1981, which remains one of the greatest werewolf movies ever made and one of the best horror comedies of all time.
David Naughton and Griffin Dunne play two Americans backpacking across England who wander onto the moors, ignore some extremely sensible advice from the locals, and encounter a werewolf.
From there, Landis creates this bizarre and wonderful mixture of genuine terror, gruesome violence, romance, absurd comedy, and one of the greatest werewolf transformations ever put on film.
That transformation, created by the legendary Rick Baker, still looks incredible. This is exactly why practical effects endure. There is weight to them. Texture. Pain. You feel every bone stretching and changing. The sequence is funny and horrifying at the same time, which pretty much describes the entire movie.
And Griffin Dunne wandering through the movie as an increasingly decomposed but still very conversational corpse is one of the funniest ideas in horror movie history.
After that, Freddy Krueger arrives.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is one of the very best movies in the entire Nightmare series and probably the sequel that most successfully expands Wes Craven’s original idea.
It takes Freddy’s dream world and turns it into this colorful, imaginative, completely insane playground where virtually anything can happen.
It’s scary, funny, inventive, menacing, and enormously entertaining. Robert Englund is completely in command of Freddy by this point, but the movie doesn’t yet turn him into the stand-up comedian he would become in some of the later sequels.
Freddy is still dangerous. He’s still frightening. He just happens to have some killer lines while he’s murdering you.
And then, sometime in the middle of the night when all of us should probably be asleep but absolutely will not be, we finish with Fred Dekker’s fantastic 1986 horror-comedy Night of the Creeps.
Aliens. Slugs. Zombies. College kids. Prom night. Flamethrowers. Tom Atkins. What else do you need?
Atkins is one of those actors who automatically makes a genre movie better simply by walking into it, and Night of the Creeps gives him one of his greatest roles. It’s funny, disgusting, affectionate, ridiculous, and completely aware of the horror movies that came before it.
And, of course, it contains one of the greatest taglines in horror history:
“The good news is your dates are here. The bad news is...they’re dead.”
Come on. That’s just beautiful.
Four terrific horror movies. Back-to-back-to-back-to-back. On a giant drive-in screen. All night long.
But the movies are only part of what makes this particular event so special to me.
September 19th will be the very first place where I will officially launch, sell, and sign my new book, 40 Years, 40 Horror Films.
This book is the follow-up to 40 Years, 40 Films, my film guide/memoir that chronicled my forty years as a film critic by choosing my favorite movie from every year beginning in 1985 and combining those essays with my annual Top 10 lists and memories from my career.
40 Years, 40 Horror Films takes that basic idea and dives headfirst into the genre I have loved for virtually my entire life.
Horror.
I genuinely believe horror is one of the most important (and certainly one of the most misunderstood and disrespected) genres in the history of movies. Horror can deal with anything.
Politics. Religion. Family. Sex. Death. Grief. Disease. Racism. Class. War. Childhood. Aging. Trauma. Fear itself. It can be serious, ridiculous, funny, disgusting, beautiful, heartbreaking, surreal, or completely insane. Sometimes all in the same movie.
The book begins in 1985 and moves through forty years of horror, with a chapter devoted to my favorite horror movie from each year. Along the way I write about slashers, monsters, ghosts, vampires, zombies, found-footage movies, psychological horror, possession movies, creature features, supernatural horror, and just about every other strange corner of the genre.
My horror Top 10 lists from those years are included as well, and more than 400 horror films are discussed or mentioned throughout the book.
But 40 Years, 40 Horror Films isn't simply about movies. It’s also about horror fans. This book is dedicated to the tribe.
My tribe.
The people I have met during my decades at Flashback Weekend. The people who stand in line to meet actors and filmmakers they love. The people wearing horror T-shirts. The collectors. The convention regulars.
The people who can spend an hour debating their favorite Friday the 13th sequel. The people who know exactly which version of Michael Myers’ mask looks right. The people who will happily sit at a drive-in until sunrise watching four horror movies in a row. Those are my people.
And I love the fact that the very first official launch event for this book is happening at the Midway, surrounded by exactly that community.
The book also features a Foreword by my friend Rich Koz (the one and only Svengoolie) which makes it even more special to me. Rich is an essential part of Chicago horror history and Chicago television history, and I am incredibly proud to have him be part of this project.
Throughout the night I’ll have a table set up with copies of 40 Years, 40 Horror Films. I’ll be selling and signing books before the movies begin and during some of the breaks between films. Come over and say hello.
Buy a copy and I’ll personalize it for you. We’ll take pictures. We’ll talk horror movies. Tell me what your favorite horror movie is. Tell me which one I got completely wrong in the book. I’m sure somebody will.
That’s part of the fun.
There will also be horror vendors coming in with all kinds of merchandise, like T-shirts, DVDs, Blu-rays, posters, photographs, masks, collectibles, and assorted wonderful horror-related crap that none of us actually needs but all of us will somehow convince ourselves we absolutely have to buy.
And between the features there will be vintage horror trailers and those wonderful old drive-in concession advertisements that are such an important part of the experience.
This is why I love the Midway and why I love events like this. Watching a horror movie at home is great. I do it constantly. But horror is communal. Comedy is communal. Fear is communal.
There is something completely different about sitting with a giant crowd and hearing everybody scream at the same moment, laugh at the same disgusting gag, applaud when the monster finally appears, or collectively lose their minds when somebody does something incredibly stupid.
That experience cannot be duplicated in your living room.
And you definitely cannot duplicate sitting outside under the stars at two o’clock in the morning watching Freddy Krueger or Tom Atkins blow away zombies on a giant drive-in screen.
AND: The Official 2026 HorrorFest T-Shirt is available for advance purchase at special discount combo T-Shirt and Movie Ticket pricing.
So come out and join us:
Saturday, September 19th. The gates open at 5:00 p.m
The Midway Drive-In in Dixon, Illinois
Tickets, information, and pricing here: The Midway Drive-In Website
40 YEARS, 40 HORROR FILMS will be available for sale at my table.
The vendors will be there, I’ll have my book table set up, and once darkness falls we’re going straight through until dawn with Fright Night in 35mm, An American Werewolf in London, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and Night of the Creeps.
I’ll be hosting the entire marathon and introducing the movies, telling some stories, talking about the films, and hanging out with everybody throughout the night.
And most importantly for me, we will officially launch 40 Years, 40 Horror Films.
I am unbelievably proud of this book. It is a celebration of forty years of horror movies, forty years of being a film critic, and a lifetime of loving a genre that has meant an enormous amount to me.
More book events will be coming during spooky season, but this is where it begins. At a drive-in. With horror fans. Watching four great horror movies until the sun comes up. I can't imagine a more appropriate way to launch this book.
So come to the Midway Drive-In on Saturday, September 19th.
Watch some great horror movies. Browse the vendors. Buy some stuff you absolutely do not need. Pick up a copy of 40 Years, 40 Horror Films, and I’ll sign it for you. Take a picture with me. Talk horror with me.
And then settle in for an entire night of vampires, werewolves, Freddy Krueger, alien slugs, zombies, Tom Atkins, Roddy McDowall, practical effects, vintage trailers, drive-in insanity, and some of the greatest horror movies of the 1980s.
Everybody is invited.
Especially the tribe.
I hope we pack the place.
I’ll see you at the Midway!
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