A Spooky Night at the Movies offers a Monster mash-up

Whynot provides a live score as the movie screens. Credit: Submitted

A Spooky Night at the Movies
Friday, October 27, 7:30pm
Bethany United Church, 7171 Clinton Avenue
$5-$30
For tickets: 902-445-0521

A Spooky Night at the Movies, an annual silent horror film screening hosted by Bethany United Church, is back for its sixth installment—this year it serves up 1925’s horror classic The Monster.

Organist Shawn Whynot, the event’s creator, says on top of being an entertainingly novel way to get into the Halloween spirit, this event has historical and educational qualities. “I tend to look for significant films when deciding what to screen,” says Whynot. “The Monster was a defining film for the spooky-house genre and was also one of the first movies to feature a mad scientist as the main character.”

An organ performance graduate of Westminster Choir College, Whynot was inspired to create his own event after frequenting weekly silent movie nights while studying in New Jersey. “I knew it was nostalgia, but I thought it was a neat concept for a live musician to accompany a silent movie,” he says.

And the nostalgia factor has been quite the hit. A Spooky Night at the Movies has attracted 300 to 400 attendees annually since beginning in 2012, treating audiences to scares, laughs and an entire film’s length worth of organ music—something many don’t often hear outside of church spaces. This year’s musical accompaniment includes genres such as classical, ragtime and even modern pop, but Whynot isn’t giving away too many surprises.

Ultimately, while horror movies from the silent era might not be as scary when compared to their modern-day big-budget counterparts, Whynot says they offer an entirely unique and immersive experience he hopes attendees will enjoy. “Part of the fun is audiences using their imaginations to fill in the missing gap of the dialogue,” he says. “This is where movies began. It’s historic, nostalgic and very entertaining.”