Grand Illusion Cinema

10/21/2026

NIGHT OF THE VAMP-FRIARS is a loving tribute to the homegrown horror films made during the height of the video store era. See it Oct. 29 at the Central Cinema!

Roxy is an anthropology major at her local university as well as a DJ for the college’s radio station. One night, a listener calls into Roxy’s show to share a local legend about a hidden cemetery in the woods where a group of Friars who were killed and buried because the townspeople believed they were vampires. Thinking this would be a great topic for her thesis, Roxy convinces her friends in a punk band to head out into the woods for a weekend of camping in order to find the cemetery. After discovering that the legend of the cemetery is in fact real, blood is accidentally spilled on the hallowed ground, and the undead Friars rise from their graves in search of fresh victims to satisfy their blood lust.

This is the first feature film wholly produced by Vinegar Syndrome Pictures, directed by Kurtis M. Spieler (Re-Director of New York Ninja).

10/20/2026

In 2005, Eleanor Coppola filmed her daughter Sofia directing MARIE ANTOINETTE at the Palace of Versailles, the first production ever granted access to the palace. For two decades, eighty hours of footage went unseen. Now, twenty years after the film's release and in fulfillment of her mother's wish, that footage becomes a film of its own. MAKING MARIE ANTOINETTE follows the making of this landmark production, Milena Canonero's costume work, and what it took to direct at 34, watched the whole time by her own mother.

“Lush, intimate and compulsively watchable, this Coppola family affair bottles the fleeting nature of time and invites us to the ultimate Versailles party.” Tomris Laffly, Variety

We present the film Nov. 1 at 730pm at the SIFF Film Center. And don't miss the new 4K restoration of MARIE ANTOINETTE at 430pm, same date/location!

10/18/2026

We present a 20th anniversary screening of Sofia Coppola's pastel-soaked cult classic, MARIE ANTOINETTE, newly restored in 4K! Nov. 1 at the SIFF Film Center.

Coppola brings a candy-colored palette, a dreamy synth-pop soundtrack, and Converse high-tops to eighteenth-century Versailles for this exuberantly subversive, extravagantly stylized anti-biopic of one of history’s most infamous (and perhaps misunderstood) figures.

Kirsten Dunst portrays Marie Antoinette as a rebellious teenage princess, who marries the awkward young dauphin of France (Jason Schwartzman), soon to be crowned King Louis XVI. Feeling isolated in a royal court rife with scandal and intrigue, Marie Antoinette defies both royalty and commoner by living like a rock star—which can work for only so long.

Named the 10th best movie of the 21st century by The Big Picture podcast.

“A buoyant, passionately sympathetic dream-bio.” Stephanie Zacharek, Salon

“With lyrical intelligence and scrappy wit, Coppola creates a luscious world to get lost in. It’s a pleasure.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“A startlingly original and beautiful pop reverie that comes very close to being transcendent.” Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times

Also screening on Nov 1 is MAKING MARIE ANTOINETTE, a behind-the-scenes documentary made by Sophia's mother, Eleanor.

10/17/2026

For this year's triple feature pizza party, we're broadcasting three more chilling tales straight from 1960s, 70s, and 80s network TV, when original horror movies haunted home television screens on a regular basis. The evening's program consists of another trio of lesser-known gems, this time featuring creepy phone calls, stalkers, highway horror, and mysterious items of the occult. As always, the titles are secret, so you won't find out what frightening fables are in store for you until airtime.

Regular concessions will be available for purchase at the beginning of the transmission and throughout the night. The main course will arrive following the first feature. And in addition to satiating the more carnivorous appetites, we’ll have options for our vegetarian and vegan friends too. Plus, during intermissions, you’ll be treated to period-specific Halloween commercials to complete the experience.

Take another trip back in time to the heyday of made-for-TV horror movies tomorrow at 430pm at the SIFF Film Center!

10/16/2026

Tomorrow at the SIFF Film Center we present the horror classic I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE at 530pm. And at 730pm Maya Annik Bedward's new documentary BLACK ZOMBIE unearths the buried origins of the zombie.

“It is Tourneur’s caressingly evocative direction, superbly backed by Roy Hunt’s chiaroscuro images, that makes sheer magic of [I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE's] brooding journey into fear.” Tom Milne, Time Out

BLACK ZOMBIE is a NYT Critic’s Pick! “The gangs of the undead are all here to reflect an often ignored and complicated genealogy: from the entranced white woman in Victor Halperin’s White Zombie to the multiracial mob of flesh-eaters in George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead to the frenzied hordes in World War Z and beyond.” Lisa Kennedy, The New York Times

10/15/2026

The Sprocket Society presents the legendary pre-Code thriller THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME on October 27 at 730pm at the SIFF Film Center. Shown with spooky shorts — all on 16mm film!

A secret island owned by a rich, calculating psychopath with unholy kinks. An innocent man and woman thrown together by pure chance, stranded by “accident,” far beyond the help of any caring soul. Frayed wits and a woodsman’s knife pitted against the rich man’s cunning, his arsenal, and his pack of ravening hounds. Ah, the manhunt is on! The bloodlust…so sweet. So perfectly crafted. So inconsequential.

Joel McRae, Fay Wray, and a gloriously villainous Leslie Banks star in a tightly wound thriller that’s as short and hard-hitting as a crossbow bolt.

A low budget studio throw-away, 94 years later it’s been copied countless times yet never bested. Co-helmed by the director of King Kong and shot on the same jungle sets, the tension and fog-choked visuals linger long after the credits roll.

All aboard: your berth awaits!

“The filmmakers deliver terrific set pieces and exotic atmosphere, resulting in one of the most lavish and best-looking B-movies ever made, with wonderfully lurid pre-Code flourishes: gruesome violence, sa**sm, and sexual perversity.” Sean Axmaker, Video Librarian

“There isn’t an ounce of fat and no line is thrown away. Films like this really aren’t made anymore, and it’s a breath of fresh air, even after 90 years.” Dan Roberts, We Are Cult

Screening location: SIFF Film Center – 167 Republican St, Seattle (located within the Seattle Center, just north of Climate Pledge Arena / east of KEXP and The Vera Project)

10/14/2026

“…hard to top for stylistic boldness, vivid pictorialism, and dramatic power.” Ted Shen, Chicago Reader

We present a new restoration the beloved cult classic fantasy A CHINESE GHOST STORY on Oct. 20 at 730pm at the SIFF Film Center.

Special live intro from local Hong Kong genre film connoisseur and one of the programmers of the Seattle Film Society, Patrick McFarland.

A traveling tax collector (Leslie Cheung) short on funds opts to take shelter in a seemingly abandoned temple. He is surprised to discover a young woman (Joey Wang) there and instantly falls for her beauty and grace. While every romance has its challenges, the tax collector gets more than he bargained for when he learns that the maiden is, in fact, a ghost... forced into servitude by a demon. With the help of a brave warrior, the tax collector must brave the perils of a supernatural world in order to free his newfound love.

In Cantonese with English subtitles.

10/13/2026

Original trailer is long gone, so here is a period-style preview pr...

10/13/2026

“It transcends the conventions of the horror genre and remains one of Lewton-Tourneur’s most compelling studies in light and darkness.” Don Druker, Chicago Reader

We present I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE October 17th at the SIFF Film Center!

Supplemental screening opportunity: See Tourneur’s classic and then stay to see it discussed in Maya Annik Bedward’s new documentary BLACK ZOMBIE.

When she takes a job caring for a comatose woman on a Caribbean island, a young nurse (Frances Dee) finds herself plunged into a mysterious world where the ghosts of slavery haunt the present and Vodou priests have the power to summon the living dead. Sugarcane swaying in a moonlit field, the hypnotic beat of ceremonial drums, the relentless pull toward death—the otherworldly atmosphere of this bold reimagining of Jane Eyre is as close as studio-era Hollywood ever came to pure dream-state surrealism.

Producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur elevated the horror film to new heights of poetic abstraction with this entrancing journey into the realm between life and death.